THE FUTURE STATES 

THEIR EVIDENCES AND NATURE CONSIDERED 
ON PRINCIPLES PHYSICAL MORAL 
AND SCRIPTURAL 



THE FUTURE STATES 

THEIR EVIDENCES AND NATURE CONSIDERED 
ON PRINCIPLES PHYSICAL MORAL 
AND SCRIPTURAL 

WITH THE DESIGN OF SHOWING THE VALUE 
OF THE GOSPEL REVELATION 



BY THE 



RIGHT REV. REGINALD COURTENAY, D.D, 

LORD BISHOP OF KINGSTON (JAMAICA). 



LONDON : 

T. HATCHARD, 187 PICCADILLY. 

1857. 



PREFACE. 



TT1HE following work having been for some 
years out of publication, in consequence of 
the retirement of the publisher, and the absence 
of the author from England, is again offered to 
the world, four-and-twenty years after it was 
first designed, under the deliberate conviction 
that it sets forth moral and scriptural truths 
which, though not essential to our Christian 
faith, are yet of no light importance ; and that 
it may, through the Divine blessing, tend to 
the Divine glory, by representing, not unfaith- 
fully, yet in stronger and darker colours than 
usual, the true condition of man, if without the 
mediation of Christ, and a knowledge of His 
Gospel. Time has not changed the writer's 
belief, that the soul of man is naturally mortal 
— being, when separate from the body, naturally 
incapable of independent consciousness ; that 
without the Redeemer, it can have no life, and 
that, even through the Redeemer, it has none 
until the Day of Redemption. He cannot ac- 
cept the popular notion, that ^the saints which 



PREFACE, 



sleep" are all awake, and that "the dead" are 
now alive. 

To those who think otherwise, — whether 
because they judge the above-stated views to 
be opposed to the language of Holy Scripture, 
or to the belief of the primitive Church, or to 
physical or moral truths, — he can but suggest 
the perusal of the work itself. 

On one subject only, — a question of the in- 
terpretation of certain unfulfilled prophecies, 
the author would wish to modify, and partially 
retract (as he has indeed in some measure done 
already in the Appendix to page 377) an 
opinion formerly maintained. There are not a 
few persons who suppose, that the soul of a 
believer, upon its separation from the body, is 
immediately in a heavenly state, with Christ 
and the holy angels, and the saints of all former 
generations ; and that, secondly, at the com- 
mencement of the Millennium, the body being 
reunited to the soul, it lives and reigns with 
Christ, on the present earth, in greater glory 
still ; and that, in the third place, having, at the 
expiration of this thousand years of triumph, 
been put upon its trial, and solemnly "judged 
out of the things written in the books," and 
ascertained to be " found written in the Book 
of Life," it enters upon its final and eternal 
condition. 



PREFACE. 



Thus are two intermediate states, possibly of 
many thousand years' duration, interposed be- 
tween the present world, and that promised in 
the closing pages of the Divine revelation. 

The second of these supposed intermediate 
states, it is thought, will be preceded by a 
general conversion of the Jews, and the resur- 
rection of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all 
the prophets, and all the saints without excep- 
tion, — of whom those who are of the seed of 
Abraham shall occupy the land of Israel, enjoy- 
ing the visible presence and personal govern- 
ment of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Persuaded that these anticipations will not be 
realised, the writer has endeavoured to show 
that all the Divine promises to Abraham and 
his seed will be fulfilled in a heavenly Canaan, 
after the present heavens and earth have passed 
away. This interpretation of prophecy he 
would now so far retract, as to admit that a 
conversion of the Jewish people to the Christian 
faith, and their consequent restoration to the 
land whence they have been banished, will pre- 
cede the Millennium : a retractation, however, 
in no wise affecting the main positions, that " it 
is appointed unto men once to die ; and after 
that — the judgment :" and that not until the 
judgment can they, unless in rare and ex- 
ceptional cases, " enter into Life Eternal." 



PREFACE. 



For the rest, the writer's convictions remain 
unchanged. Many Catholic Christians, men 
learned and wise, men holy and " taught of 
God," will differ from him in opinion, and 
that widely. But these differences are of com- 
paratively little moment, if only, through Divine 
grace, we are able, when our flesh and our 
hearts are failing, to resign our souls without 
fear into the hands of Him, who holds the keys 
of Hades and of Death. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Introduction 1 

BOOK I. 

THE PHYSICAL EVIDENCES OF A FUTURE LIFE. 

Chap. 

I. On the Dependence of the Human Mind on the 

Body; and on Sleep 22 

II. The Dependence of the Mind upon the Brain 38 

III. The Body no Impediment to the Mind 51 

IV. The Utility of the Body in Mental Processes 72 

V. The Argument from the Indivisibility of Mind.... 75 

VI. The Argument from Man's physical Superiority 97 

VII. Conclusion and Recapitulation 105 

Note. In the work, Chapters IV. V. VI. VII. are numbered V. VI. 
VII. VIII. 

BOOK II. 

THE MORAL EVIDENCES OF A FUTURE LIFE. 

I. Introductory 116 

II. Sentiments of the Heathen on Natural Religion 131 

III. On the Arguments for Immortality founded upon 

the Sufferance of Evil 153 

IV. The Argument for Immortality, from the Great- 

ness of human Desires 188 

V. The Argument from the Perfectibility of the Spe- 
cies 209 

VI. The Argument from Moral Derangement 216 

BOOK III. 

THE FUTURE STATES AS REVEALED IN SCRIPTURE. 

1. Introductory 225 

II. Immortality begun in Spiritual Life 231 



viii CONTENTS. 

Chap. Page 

III. On the Intermediate State 239 

IV. The Intermediate State, continued 259 

V. The Intermediate State, continued 291 

VI. The Intermediate State, concluded 332 

VII. The Day of Judgement 341 

VIII. The Future State of Punishment 348 

IX. The New Heavens and Earth 360 

X. General Conclusion 385 

Appendix 393 



ERRATA. 

Page 23, line 1, for as read is. • 

117, line 2 from bottom, for any other counteracting read any 

counteracting effect. 
346, line 3 from bottom, for become lost read beware lest. 



THE FUTURE STATES, 
THEIR EVIDENCES AND NATURE, 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

WE are commanded, in one brief sentence of 
Scripture, to " try all tilings," and " to 
hold fast to that which is good ;" and experience 
has shown, upon a very extensive scale, at once 
the practical difficulty and the importance of 
reconciling the two precepts. It has been found, 
that minds habituated to a free range of specula- 
tion sometimes acquire a fatal inclifferency in 
religious matters ; and are inconstant even to 
approved objects of belief. They are anxious to 
hear what can be said on all sides of all subjects, 
but indifferent about conclusions. Others are 
anxious for a conclusion, indifferent about its 
premises : clinging too eagerly and blindly to 
what they imagine to be true, without a sufficiently 
candid examination of other things, they become 
incapable of expanded views, and are attached to 
error more frequently than to truth. In the 
eastern world, from China to the shores of the 
Caspian, are to be found nations which have from 
century to century, with little vacillation, held 
each to its own particular form of error ; while 

B 



2 



INTRODUCTION. 



on the opposite side of the globe, beyond the 
Atlantic, men hold fast to no forms of doctrine 
whatever, and may sometimes be seen to exchange, 
without compunction, a creed nearly apostolic for 
some extravagant invention of a presumptuous 
philosophy, — because, perhaps, the arguments 
and the eloquence of the controversial preachers 
whom they have followed were at length exhausted, 
or they happened, for some trivial reason, to 
change their place of worship. 

Thus, through frequent changing, do many 
minds become, in process of time, incapable of a 
really firm faith. No doctrine can be so fully 
expounded to them, and enforced by such a 
weight of moral evidence, but that they will soon 
be ready to ask, Can any one show us a doctrine 
more probable than this ? They are never more 
highly interested, than when an effort is made to 
shake the foundations of their belief, and propose 
to their view opinions new, startling, incongru- 
ous. The Church history of Europe furnishes 
similar instances, though the extreme opinions 
are not so far apart, to those of Asia and North 
America. The Romanists have failed to escape 
from those errors of doctrine to which every church 
is liable through the corruption of human nature, 
in consequence of their neglecting the command 
to try all things, while they professed to hold 
fast to that which was good; and Protestants 
have fallen into error, even into fatal heresies, 
in consequence of their neglecting to hold fast 
the truth, while they sought to try all things. 



INTRODUCTION. 



3 



Arid even within the Anglican Church are two 
parties, which charge each other with neglecting 
the one or the other branch of the twofold apos- 
tolic precept. 

But the difficulty of reconciling a sufficiently 
impartial exercise of reason, with an entire rea- 
diness to adopt as an article of faith whatever 
appears to be, in fact, declared by the infallible 
word of God, would be much diminished, if men 
would remember that every point of doctrine 
which the mind has once tried, and found to 
bear the impress of Scriptural truth,* is to be 
adopted and held fast before it is tried again ; 
that though speculation is not forbidden, it must 
not be allowed to loosen the hold of truth which 
the mind has taken, upon a fair examination of 
testimony. 

If such a doctrine as that of the future states 
be first cordially believed in and embraced on 
the authority of the Scriptures, which expressly 
declare their existence, and partially reveal their 



* The writer would not be understood to say, that each 
mind must rely solely on its own powers ; for this, even in tem- 
poral matters, would often be a presumptuous and a dangerous 
course ; but that the ultimate reference should be to Scripture 
only : that aid should be sought, from every available quarter, 
though authority should be appealed to in none, in determining 
whether Scripture does, or does not, unequivocally lay down the 
doctrine in question. Many will dissent from this position ; but 
happily those truths respecting a future life, in which Chris- 
tians are most interested, are laid down in the Bible in general 
terms, so plainly that he who runs may read and understand ; 
and there is no need to appeal to another authority, if such 
there be. 



4 



INTRODUCTION. 



nature, many speculations on this profoundly 
interesting topic become not only safe, but ser- 
viceable to the cause of truth, which, had they 
been entered upon before the mind had taken 
a firm hold of the Gospel, might have tended 
to keep the truth back. One who from child- 
hood to middle age had been accustomed to 
travel from country to country, without a perma- 
nent home to be the object of hope or regret, — 
who had been early familiarized to barbarous as 
well as to more civilized society, would probably 
become incapable of strong attachment to a par- 
ticular spot ; and if towards the close of his days 
he settled at all, would be not unlikely to prefer 
a semi-barbarous people, and a mode of life of 
which enlightened men cannot approve. But if 
he had been educated in a home in which he 
became accustomed to the refined pleasures of 
civilized life, it is probable that no subsequent 
wanderings would endanger his well grounded 
attachment to his native country and his birth- 
place. It is well that men should be prejudiced, 
to a certain degree, in favour of these ; and should 
not lightly change their place of abode, and 
transfer their feelings of patriotism to another 
country ; but it is also well that they should 
entertain no blind attachment, and there may be 
circumstances in which a change would be both 
expedient and truly philosophic. And so it is 
in religion, with this only difference, affecting 
the relative duties of holding fast and of trying, 
that the Creator would have men be all of one 



INTRODUCTION. 



5 



religion, though not all of one country. It is 
well for a man to be attached to the creed of his 
forefathers, and not desert it merely because the 
creeds on the face of the earth are many ; but 
well also that he should be open to conviction 
of error. And the same observation applies to 
creeds in general ; and also to those smaller 
matters of belief which are contained in the 
creeds, but are not essential parts of them. 

These remarks may assist in showing that rea- 
son, when employed in the trial of opinions on 
any matter connected with Revelation, is better 
employed in illustrating truths previously ad- 
mitted on that authority, than in recommending 
or introducing Revelation as of its own authority. 
We know the Revelation to be true ; — this book 
is not designed for those who would call it in 
question, — and philosophy undertakes a danger- 
ous task, when it voluntarily loosens its hold of 
that which has been tried and approved to be 
good, for the purpose of showing some new prin- 
ciple upon which it may be embraced. Men's 
minds may be unsettled by such endeavours to 
convince them, and they may be induced either 
to doubt of the truths revealed, or take up inac- 
curate notions concerning them, and such as 
Scripture would never have suggested. 

Thus does religion suffer from an indiscreet 
use of philosophy. And if religion does not 
suffer any detriment, it will be often found that 
philosophy is brought into disrepute. It is true 
that there are many and strong analogies be- 



6 



INTRODUCTION. 



tween the system of Nature and that of Reve- 
lation ; but religion teaches us that the Works of 
God, and among them the mind and heart of 
man, are not as at first, very good, and like the 
Word that created them, and " answering His 
great idea ;" but that the earth was cursed for 
man's sake when he fell, and that the system of 
Christian theology is remedial ; and we should 
not, therefore, wonder if there be things on earth 
not analogous to things in heaven ; and if human 
philosophy should on some questions prove either 
utterly inefficient to determine any thing ; or, if 
a conclusion be extorted from it, adverse to the 
Word of God* 

In the opinion of the writer, no part of Reve- 
lation has suffered more from the indiscretions of 
philosophy, than that which declares the future 
states of happiness and misery. There is a very 
strong tendency in many modern writings on 
theological subjects, to convert or at least endea- 
vour to convert every fact which observation can 
discover, whether in the physical or in the moral 
world, into an Evidence of Religion. And it is 
probable that this might be done with success, if 
men, in seeking to reconcile reason with Scrip- 



* Reason is decidedly adverse, for instance, to the doctrine 
of the resurrection of the body. Much confusion is created in 
some minds by contrasting Reason and Revelation. When we 
speak of any Revelation being opposed to Reason, we must 
mean, to the conclusion to which our Reason would have come, 
had that Revelation never been made to us. Once made, the 
Revelation should be the basis of all subsequent reasoning. 



INTRODUCTION. 



7 



ture, would remember that discord has been 
introduced into the world — that the unregenerate 
is the natural state of man — and that Scripture 
contains threats as well as promises. For hence 
we might be led to expect that the constitution 
of the natural man would contain indications 
rather of his future condition without, than with, 
salvation by Christ. Natural theology is not 
necessarily, nor is it in fact, concordant with 
Christian theology : and there are many truths 
discoverable by reason, which prove only that 
man is in a state of degradation and corruption, 
and has, as^ it were, strayed away into the gloomy 
dominions of an evil power, and become an alien 
and an enemy of God. But these melancholy 
truths have been too often overlooked in philoso- 
phical writings ; and endeavours have been made 
to show that the world inhabited by fallen man, 
and cursed for his sake, does, in fact, contain 
nothing of death, — that its sting may be taken 
away without a knowledge of Christ, — that the 
whole universe testifies to a blissful immortality 
reserved for the human race. That such an im- 
mortality is reserved for the followers of Christ, 
is indeed a glorious truth, and one to which some 
testimony is afforded even by things in this fallen 
world : but in Scripture another state also is 
revealed, of perpetual death, if not of perpetual 
misery also, of which many things in this world 
afford a previously intelligible indication, or at 
least a strong confirmation. "Natural Religion," 
it has been finely observed by Dr. Chalmers, " has 



8 



INTRODUCTION. 



been called the basis of Christianity. It would 
better accord with our own views of the place 
which it occupies, and of the high purpose which 
it undoubtedly serves — if it were called the basis 
of Christianization. * * As a prompter to inquiry 
it is of inestimable service, but as an informer 
little to be trusted. * * Christianity rests on its 
own proper evidence ; and, if instead of this, she 
be made to rest on an antecedent natural reli- 
gion, she becomes weak throughout, because weak 
radically." 

Accordingly we should endeavour to trace the 
consistency of Revelation not with that view of 
nature which we might have been inclined to 
take beforehand ; but with that view which the 
Revelation itself points out to be the most just 
and true. Whoever will enter on the contem- 
plation of nature with the Bible in his hand, will 
obtain a key to the solution of difficulties which 
else would have been altogether insurmountable. 
A firm faith in the Word of God will enable him 
to discern in His Works relations before unob- 
served, and harmonies before unsuspected. Any 
one who was proceeding to examine the con- 
struction of a complicated piece of machinery, 
would find his examination greatly facilitated by 
his being previously informed of the purpose for 
which the machine was made. 

But philosophy is too often employed, and 
with pernicious effect, not in recommending, 
nor in illustrating, but in seeking to establish 
revelation ; — to show that the fundamental doc- 



INTRODUCTION. 



9 



trines of Scripture are all highly probable and 
reasonable, and such as we should, beforehand, 
naturally expect to find them. The ambition of 
modern theologians, and their desire to avoid all 
imputations of illiberality, in assuming, on the 
authority of the Bible, whatever they could not 
show to be antecedently probable, has often in- 
duced them to take up this untenable position : 
and it seems to have been tacitly assumed by both 
parties, in many a theological controversy, that 
the leading truths of religion were to be sup- 
ported, as on their strongest and broadest basis, 
by modern physical discoveries. But, whoever 
seeks to prevail against any stronghold of infi- 
delity, and to plant there the banner of Revela- 
tion, must arm himself for the conflict in the 
whole armour of God; or notwithstanding the 
goodness of his cause, he will have no security 
against defeat. 

Dr. Butler has devoted a considerable part of 
the first chapter of his Analogy of Religion — one 
of the earliest, and unquestionably the greatest 
of the works which show the extent of relation 
between the visible world and the world known 
to us by reason, or by faith — to the proving that 
the phenomena of death furnish no reasonable 
presumption against the doctrine of a future life. 
And in so far as he has confined himself to such 
arguments as tend to show that the continuance 
of life and consciousness is by no means impossi- 
ble, he has done some service to the cause of 
truth. But when he ventures further than this, 



10 



INTRODUCTION. 



endeavouring to establish the doctrine of immor- 
tality on grounds independent of Revelation, and 
to " prove it to a very considerable degree of pro- 
bability" he takes up a position which, if the 
principles maintained in the first two books of 
this work are not incorrect, is altogether unten- 
able. A numerous train of minor theologians 
have since taken the same path, each confidently 
advancing his favourite philosophical demonstra- 
tion of an eternity of happiness reserved for the 
human race, and addressing himself to readers 
who were too well satisfied with his conclusion to 
be much concerned about the method by which 
it was, ostensibly, made out. But this is an abuse 
of philosophy, which is calculated to bring into 
disrepute truths of infinitely higher value than 
any which philosophy can make known. When 
the theologian, not content with establishing out 
of the Bible the certainty of those things wherein 
he has been instructed, quits his impregnable for- 
tress, to be defeated, as surely he may be, on the 
neutral ground of human philosophy, the sceptic, 
giving him credit for greater prudence than he 
has actually exercised, may imagine that one of 
the strongest positions whence to defend the truth 
has proved unserviceable. " My adversary," he 
may argue, " would not have abandoned his texts 
for weapons of man's forging, had he not been 
sensible that the contest, after all, must mainly 
depend upon their aid." 

There is perhaps no doctrine of the Christian 
religion, not even the fundamental doctrine of the 



INTRODUCTION. 



11 



unity of the Godhead, of which reason can find a 
demonstration, capable of effecting that complete 
conviction, which the records of Revelation pro- 
duce in a philosophically humble mind.* The 
doctrine of man's immortality, in particular, as it 
is laid down in Scripture, is utterly beyond the 
reach of unassisted reason. This, it is hoped, that 
the following pages will fully prove. Neither the 
certainty of a future and everlasting life, nor the 
resurrection of the body which is essential to it, 
nor the conditions requisite for its attainment, are 
discoverable by the powers of man. Scripture 
declares that the future life will be a life of soul 
and body. And strange indeed it is, that any 
natural theologians should suppose themselves to 
be rendering an important service to the cause of 
revealed truth, in arguing in favour of the survival, 
after the dissolution of the body, of a disembodied 
soul. By such ill directed endeavours to support 
the cause of truth, endeavours as unsuccessful, 
if the present writer is not deceived, in their im- 
mediate object, as in their ulterior purpose, they 
have given to the question of the probability or 
possibility of a separate consciousness an import- 
ance which did not properly belong to it ; and 
have rendered it well worth while to re-examine 
arguments much in vogue, and which to many 
minds appear to affect the truth of Revelation. 
In fact, such arguments are beside the purpose ; 
they can have no influence upon the mind of a 



* See Appendix. 



12 



INTRODUCTION. 



sceptic, whether in themselves conclusive or not. 
His main objection to this part of the scheme of 
Revelation attaches to the doctrine of a corporeal 
resurrection ; nor is he brought one step nearer 
to a belief in this, by any however plausible de- 
monstration of the natural immortality of mind. 
And whoever, on the other hand has, by the 
word of God, been brought to believe in a resur- 
rection, will have no apprehension lest mind 
should be mortal : for resurrection itself implies 
a renewal of consciousness. " The doctrine con- 
cerning what is called the immateriality of the 
soul," says the author of " The Physical Theory of 
another Life," "should ever be treated as a merely 
philosophical speculation, and as unimportant to 
our Christian profession."* 

But the probability of a future state may be 
rested upon moral grounds, without any reference 
to the nature of the soul. The question then 
will be, whether from what we know, without 
Revelation, of the character of the Deity, of the 
constitution and condition of man, and of the 
ends for which each individual was called into 
being ; f there is a probability that his Creator 
will place him in another world, upon his depar- 
ture from the present. This question is not, like 



* Physical Theory. Chap. I. 

f Each individual : for it is plain that, perhaps those gene- 
rations only need live again, in whom the scheme of terrestrial 
progress is brought to perfection ; and for whom, as we may 
suppose, a higher sphere of existence is prepared. 



INTRODUCTION. 



13 



the former, one upon which the Atheist and the 
Christian might come to the same conclusion; — 
it involves an admission of all the main doctrines 
of Natural Religion ; and is, therefore, on its 
own account, well worth examination. 

Though Natural Religion has been, to a con- 
siderable extent, superseded by the Revealed,* 
so that the most certain, although the most cir- 
cuitous path, by which to arrive at a conviction of 
the Being, and a true knowledge of the attributes 
of God, and the moral condition of man, is that 
which traverses the writings of the apostles and 
prophets, under the guidance of the celestial light 
which is given to all who ask, and with the aid of 
sacramental rites and Church services, the light 
of nature still shines, like the moon in the day 
time, faithfully though feebly rejecting the rays of 
the Sun of Right eousness. This secondary light 
has appeared to many moral writers so clear and 
strong, that even under the glorious noon of the 
Gospel they profess to be able to walk by it. And 
it is much to be apprehended, that they have in 
many instances mistaken the source of their know- 
ledge ; or have been misled through wilfully shut- 
ting their eyes to the " greater light" which is to 
rule the Christian world ; sometimes erroneously 
asserting that they could demonstrate by the help 
of mere reason truths which are to be found in 
Scripture, and in Scripture only ; and sometimes 
confidently advancing, for the purpose, as they 



* See Appendix. 



14 



INTRODUCTION. 



imagine, of vindicating Scripture, things which 
may or may not be plausible conclusions for the 
imperfectly illuminated mind of man to arrive at, 
but which are inconsistent with the word of God. 
Thus does one of the most eloquent and ingenious 
of modern philosophical writers take for granted, 
that " human nature in its present form is only 
the rudiment of a more extended and desirable 
mode of existence" and that for man, — that is, 
it would seem, all men, for no exception is made — 
" is destined a future spiritual structure, imper- 
ishable, and endued with higher powers, and 
many desirable prerogatives." In the same man- 
ner also does Dr. Thomas Brown, to take one 
instance more out of multitudes, boast that " there 
is within us an immortal spirit," which after 
death is to ascend to heaven, and enter into 
communion with the Deity. And the chief 
ground of his confidence appears to be, that mind 
is immaterial. But if the immateriality of mind 
does prove its immortality, it surely cannot prove 
its happy immortality. 

" There is," says Bishop Butler in allusion to 
the scepticism so fashionable in his day, " a 
certain fearlessness with regard to what may be 
hereafter under the government of God, which 
nothing but a universally acknowledged demon- 
stration on the side of atheism can justify." 
Nowhere is this strange indifference to the terrors 
of a judgment to come more strikingly displayed 
than in the pages of Christian writers, who pro- 
mise to all men indiscriminately, as owners of 



INTRODUCTION. 



15 



imperishable souls, an eternal, exalted, and desir- 
able life. Whereas the founder of Christianity 
has declared, on the contrary, " Straight is the 
gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto 
life, and few there be that find it ; and wide is 
the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to 
destruction, and many there be which go in 
thereat." The language of men does not contain 
stronger expressions than have been employed 
by the inspired writers to mark the difference 
between the two future states reserved for men.* 
Some shall have "everlasting life," others shall 
" utterly perish in their own corruption." And 
since, without the mediation of Christ, all men 
are liable to condemnation, and shall surely die, 
whatever be the nature of the punishment de- 
nounced in those mysterious words — does not 
Revelation make it probable beforehand, if we 
would submit to judge of nature by the light of 
Revelation, as well as of Revelation by the light of 
nature, that the " natural man," the lineal de- 
scendant of fallen Adam, would be found to con- 
tain in his constitution only the seeds of mortality ; 
that in the administration of the world beyond 
Paradise, should be found indications rather of 
prevailing evil and unsparing justice, than of 
remedial love, and intervening mercy ; and that 
the clouds which hang over the boundary of 
human life, should portend only a future day of 
storms, or an everlasting night ? It is not Natural 



This is treated of at length in the Third Book. 



16 



INTRODUCTION. 



Theology, it is Christianity alone that can 
give us assurance amid the mystery of evil, and 
inscribe words of hope over the dark gates of 
death. It does not indeed explain away that 
mystery in any degree, but gives us assurance ; 
like a guiding star in heaven, which is sufficient 
for our footsteps, though it does not dispel the 
night, nor perceptibly illuminate the earth. 

It is a mere enthusiasm, an attractive but 
fallacious fervour, that induces religious men to 
speak of the human soul as a thing in its own 
nature pure, excellent, inexhaustibly energetic, 
essentially immortal, waiting only for release 
from the chains and darkness and defilements of 
its earthly prison-house, to put forth its before 
latent powers, to go on from strength to strength 
and from glory to glory, and to assume the 
image and somewhat of the attributes of Divinity. 
Such a view is at once utterly inconsistent with 
all sound philosophy, and with that Revelation 
which declares that the children of Adam have 
no life in them, except by a second birth from 
above. In the regenerate there truly is some- 
what of a godlike nature, which is militant now, 
and will at length be triumphant ; but in them 

ONLY. 

This world is like an hieroglyphic scroll, 
bearing testimony, when rightly interpreted, to 
the same truths as are plainly written in the 
Book of God : but bearing, nevertheless, a 
partial testimony ; and in particular telling us 
little concerning the doctrine of immortal life ; 



INTRODUCTION. 



17 



while it tends strongly to confirm the more ter- 
rible and penal parts of the scheme disclosed by 
Revelation. Yet it is not, like the hieroglyphics 
of Egypt, altogether unintelligible to those who 
have not the right key. To them it speaks an 
indistinct language, and may with equal plausi- 
bility, be made to afford many different meanings 
more or less widely at variance with the truth. 

Many of those arguments, originating in an over- 
weening reliance on human reason, which have 
led to open and glaring errors, especially perhaps 
in the case of the Universalists and of the Unita- 
rians ; and which existing in a more latent form 
in the minds of a far more numerous class, have 
prevented a distinct perception and cordial ac- 
knowledgment of revealed truth, are not in them- 
selves less plausible, than some of the arguments 
used by orthodox writers, who with a mistaken 
zeal and misplaced confidence seek to confirm 
the most glorious truths of Christian Theology, 
without any aid from Scripture. 

The two witnesses, the Works and Word of 
God, when examined together, confirm each 
other's testimony. But it does not therefore 
follow that the evidence of the former, taken by 
itself, declares the same truths as are laid down 
by the latter. 

Under these impressions the more prevalent 
of the moral and physical arguments for a future 
state of existence have been examined, with the 
view to show how inadequate they are to do 
more (in favour of that flattering view of man's 

c 



18 



INTRODUCTION. 



destiny which their advocates invariably adopt), 
than establish a slender hope that the most 
virtuous of men may hereafter enter into a state 
of perpetual happiness : all the conjectures in 
which any thing more comprehensive, or more 
definite is aimed at, being weak in themselves, 
and having little resemblance to the truth. 

It is therefore necessary to test the soundness 
of the conjectures of human reason, by comparing 
them with what is revealed. These comparisons, 
which are occasionally introduced in earlier parts 
of the work, form the principal subject of the 
third book. And no apology need be offered, if 
in the third book the nature and aspect of the 
worlds future and invisible have been somewhat 
more fully enquired into than was necessary for 
the institution of these comparisons. We are not 
forbidden reverently to approach those regions 
of lofty contemplation, over which Scripture has 
thrown a partial light, and which human reason, 
ambitious as it is, has never attempted to pourtray. 
"It is strange," says Foster, the Essayist, " that 
any one holding the belief of a life to come, should 
not have both the intellectual faculties and the 
imagination strained to the uttermost in the trial, 
however unavailing, to give some outlines of de- 
finite form to the unseen realities." Such outlines 
we may attempt to draw, delineating what the 
vast and indistinct scene appears actually to 
contain ; but not trusting to reason, inventing 
nothing. 

In the first book the nature of mind has been 



INTRODUCTION. 



19 



considered without any systematic reference to 
the doctrines of natural religion, except in the 
last chapter. In the second the Deity has been 
regarded as a moral governor, and man as a re- 
sponsible being. The moment that the force 
of moral obligations is admitted, we can discern 
the doubtful outlines of another world ; but the 
obscurity that hangs over the view cannot be 
dispelled, without the certain light of the Word 
of God ; to which, in the third, an appeal is ac- 
cordingly made.* 

Many readers would, in these days, demand 
that an appeal should be made to a fourth autho- 
rity, the nature and limits of which the writer is 
utterly unable to define, but which they would 
describe as the " tradition of the church." To 
this tradition, they would say, the ultimate appeal 
must be made, and all deductions from Scrip- 
ture, however unimpeachable in themselves, must 
bend before it. 

There is, however, only one question con- 
sidered in the following pages, on which the 
advocates of tradition have been accustomed to 
rely much upon its authority ; namely, that relat- 
ing to the intermediate state, between death f and 



* The objects of these books maybe stated generally to be, — 
of the first, to inquire on physical principles, How can man 
live again? — of the second, on moral principles, Why should 
he live again ? — of the third, on Scriptural principles, What 
shall be his future life ? 

f The word " death" is commonly used in two very different 
senses : which it is most important to distinguish. Sometimes 



20 



INTRODUCTION. 



resurrection. This state they deem to be one of 
happiness or misery, and the present writer, one 
of insensibility ; and as on this question tradition 
does, on the whole, coincide with the earth-born 
feelings and imaginations of men, — as will inva- 
riably be the case, where the tradition does not 
really come from above, — the writer must be pre- 
pared to find himself charged with presumption, 
and disrespect of legitimate authority, greatly 
aggravated by a want of sympathy with the 
majority of Christians, in regard to a point of 
belief which they very fondly cherish. 

But on this point tradition has not been appealed 
to. First, because — just as we may set Scripture 
aside for a time, in order to ascertain what would 
be the judgement of reason alone respecting man's 
state after death, — so we may set aside tradition? 
whatever its legitimate authority, in order to as- 
certain the judgement, on the same point, of reason 
and Scripture alone. Even if tradition had the 
right of over-ruling the judgements which men 
collectively or individually form upon theological 
questions, after consulting reason and Scripture 
only, it would have no right to prevent the forming 
or pronouncing of those judgements. A superior 
court may on appeal reverse the decisions, but 
does not supersede the jurisdiction, of an inferior 
court. The author of this volume has a right to 

it signifies the passing out of a state of life, mental and bodily, 
into another state; and sometimes that other state itself. It 
will unavoidably be used in both senses, in the course of this 
work. 



INTRODUCTION. 



21 



say,— reason alone speaks thus, — reason and 
Scripture thus, whatever may be the language of 
reason, Scripture, and tradition. 

And secondly tradition has not been appealed 
to, because it is not to be believed that the various 
and vague notions of the Christian writers of the 
third and fourth centuries, to whom those who 
differ from the author would refer, were founded 
upon any apostolic tradition whatever. What is 
called church- tradition variously contradicts Scrip- 
ture, but neither interprets it, nor pronounces any 
unanimous and definite sentence of its own, con- 
cerning the state of the dead. And there are 
good grounds for supposing that, according to the 
general belief of Christians of the first two cen- 
turies at least, the dead remained out of the reach 
of joy or pain, until the day of resurrection."* 



* See Appendix. 



BOOK I. 



PHYSICAL EVIDENCES OF A FUTURE LIFE. 

CHAPTER I. 

ON THE DEPENDENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND 
ON THE BODY J AND ON SLEEP. 

THE opinion that the soul will continue to 
exist, and will experience no diminution, at 
least, of its powers, after the dissolution of the 
body which ensues on death,* has been main- 
tained, without any aid from Scripture, or from 
any moral considerations, chiefly upon the two 
following grounds. Its independence of the body ; 
as being an immaterial thing, which cannot pos- 
sibly owe its existence to any arrangement or 
structure of material senseless particles ; — and its 
essentially indestructible nature ; as being one 
and indivisible, and therefore incapable of dissolu- 
tion or decay, or indeed of any change whatever. 

The object of this first, and of several following 
chapters is, to show that granting the immateriality 
of the soul, a connection with the body, such as 
we know to exist during life, however incompre- 



* Lord Brougham has founded an argument, upon which he 
places great reliance, and which will be stated and considered in 
a future chapter, upon the fact of a " chronic dissolution" of the 
body during life. 



DEPENDENCE OF THE MIND ON THE BODY. 23 

hensible the nature of the connection may be, as 
apparently essential to the exercise of any of the 
mental functions ; and in the latter part of the 
book it is argued, that even if consciousness, and 
the subject in which it resides, be indivisible, and 
be indestructible, consciousness is nevertheless 
capable of complete suspension, and probably will 
be completely suspended by, and after, death. 

In reference to the first point Bishop Butler, 
the most successful of all vindicators of the 
reasonableness of the Gospel dispensation, has 
argued, and justly enough, that if death and the 
dissolution of the body* do not of themselves 
destroy our capacity for thought and action, we 
may reasonably expect to retain it through and 
after death. That death does not destroy them 
would certainly be a " sufficient reason" for sup- 
posing them to survive. And many facts have 
been brought forward, by Butler, and by other 
writers, with a view to show that death does not 
in any way destroy this capacity. Matter, it is 
observed, is universally, under every form and in 
every modification, inert and insensate ; no com- 
mixture of elements, however subtle, no organiza- 
tion, however complicated, can impart to it motion 
or life. These are derived from the soul, the 
body being merely the means by which we per- 



* These are not the same thing ; but one the cause of the 
other ; as will be hereafter further considered. This has been 
generally overlooked : and has led to much and serious mis- 
representation. 



24 



DEPENDENCE OF THE 



ceive and act upon external things. How then, 
it is argued, can the dissolution of these elements, 
or the breaking up of this structure, destroy or 
impair the soul ? Now not to call in question, in 
this place, the justice of the assumption, that 
man, — mind and body, — is nothing beyond an 
aggregation of passive particles, and an indivisi- 
ble soul ; it can only be replied that our in- 
ability to explain how the body can influence the 
soul at the time of death must not be permitted 
to create any doubt that such an influence is 
possible, unless we are also entitled to doubt that 
the mind and body reciprocally influence one 
another during life, because we are unable to 
give any account of the mode by which that 
influence is maintained. The language of some 
writers is such, indeed, as to go far towards 
denying this connexion and influence, at least 
that of body on mind, altogether. Dr. Butler 
calls consciousness one and indivisible, and argues 
that it is therefore indissoluble, imperishable, un- 
changeable : and further says that the subject 
in which consciousness resides, the mind, must 
be so to. Is then the mind, the whole mind, un- 
changeable ? This it seems would naturally follow. 

And Lord Brougham speaks of the mind, as 
continuing the same, from youth to old age, 
amidst all the changes of the body, " without 
shadow of turning." Now there may be some 
inmost essence of soul, some consciousness of 
consciousness, which remains the same during all 
the waking hours at least, of a man's life. And 



HUMAN MIND ON THE BODY. 



25 



there may be, beyond this, some faculty of con- 
sciousness, which remains the same during the 
profoundest sleep, the most utter insensibility, 
and which even death will not destroy. But 
however this be, it is certain that the mind does 
possess and exert powers at one time, which it 
does not possess, or (which is practically just the 
same thing) cannot exert, at another ; and is, in 
a perfectly intelligible sense, the most changeable 
thing we know. And are we to reject all that is 
changeable ; and having thus reduced the mind 
as it were to the skeleton of its former self, call 
man an immortal being ? Such an existence would 
be of no value ; it would be a virtual death. 
Unless not merely the faculty of consciousness, 
but all or a considerable portion of the active 
and ever varying energies of the mind, remain 
entire and unimpaired after the dissolution of the 
body, nothing remains worth contending for. 
And the question now to be considered is, whe- 
ther there is, or is not, so close a connexion 
between mind and body, as that the latter is 
essential, if not to the bare existence of mind in 
the abstract, at least to the exercise of the mental 
functions. The practically important question 
is, not whether any capacity for thought, but 
whether any thoughts, will survive the death of 
the body ; or whether they will not " all perish, 
when man returns to his earth." 

There are many facts, familiarly known, and 
indeed matters of universal experience, which 
very strongly show, that the mind, however dis- 



26 



DEPENDENCE OF THE 



tinct it may be in nature from the body, closely 
sympathises, and co-operates with it : and further, 
that this co-operation is mutual ; — that as mind 
is necessary to produce corporeal activity, so also 
is body to produce mental activity. Mind by 
itself, or we should rather say, the human mind, 
as at present constituted, is no less insensate than 
matter. Sensation is an attribute, (let the shrink- 
ing of the tentacles of the polype when touched 
be the illustration and proof of this) is an attri- 
bute of mind and matter •, residing in neither 
alone. And in like manner, as a vast number of 
facts go to prove, is mental activity, generally, 
inseparable from corporeal. 

A stunning blow on the head renders the mind 
as inert and insensate, (and as unconscious too, 
notwithstanding the indivisibility of conscious- 
ness) as the weapon that inflicted the injury. 

After certain intervals of action and excite- 
ment, our bodies imperatively require rest ; of 
which they cannot be deprived either by sickness, 
or by excitement continued from external in- 
fluences, for any considerable time, without suffer- 
ing great and sometimes permanent injury. And 
it seems that the repose is incomplete, and the 
body imperfectly recruited, unless the mind par- 
take, in some degree at least, in this inactivity ; 
and, as if withdrawn from the body, cease not 
only from controling the movements of the limbs, 
but from all sympathy with, all consciousness of, 
whatever may affect the organs of sense. How 
far the other powers of the mind, such as me- 



HUMAN MIND ON THE BODY. 



27 



mory, imagination, reason, and others, partake 
in the common lethargy of the body and of the 
mental powers of perception and voluntary mo- 
tion, it is impossible for us to discover with 
certainty. Any one who pleases may assert, that 
the mind is as active as ever, although we have 
no recollection of our sleeping thoughts, our 
dreams. But this want of recollection affords at 
least a presumption, either that the impressions 
made during sleep are extremely feeble, or that 
no ideas whatever pass through the brain during 
the greater part of our sleeping hours. For when 
we are awake, the distinctness of our recollections 
is very nearly in proportion to the force and 
depth of the original impressions ; and beyond 
this, seems to depend on no other cause than the 
degree of exclusive attention with which they 
have been entertained. Now when our bodies 
are awake, and we are experiencing fresh sen- 
sations almost every instant, our attention, it 
would seem, must be more distracted, than during 
sleep. How is it, then, that we do not recollect ? 
If the mind is so independent of the body as 
some persons would believe, what is there in the 
transfer from a waking to a sleeping state of 
body, or the reverse, that should interrupt the 
current of our recollections in a greater degree, 
than when one exchanges rest for activity, or 
activity for rest, without waking or falling asleep ? 

But we do sometimes remember our sleeping 
thoughts, our dreams. And they are, in general, 
as faint, as evanescent, and as confused as the 



28 



DEPENDENCE OF THE 



images which float before our eyes when we close 
them in composing ourselves to rest : and are 
so easily banished by the most trivial waking 
thoughts as these images are by the admission 
even of faint light.* Moreover it appears that 
dreams never take place during deep sleep ; but 
only when the body is disturbed ; is, like the 
mind, in a state between sleeping and waking, 
and acts, like the mind, feebly, irregularly, and 
involuntarily. Lord Brougham has mentioned 
in his Discourse on Natural Theology several 
curious facts — and Abercrombie, in his work 
on the Intellectual Powers, gives some similar 
instances — to show that an exceedingly short 
space of our sleeping time is occupied by dreams, 
even when to the dreamer himself many hours, 
or even days, seem to have elapsed. In many 
cases a sudden sound, or some painful sensation, 
both rouses the sleeper to his full consciousness, 



* If, when the eyes are closed in a dark room, and the mind 
is calm, any faint streaks of light, specks, or figures seem to 
float upon the dark stream, these may be made to assume the 
shape of almost any object, especially of a brilliant one, to which 
the thoughts are steadily directed. After becoming distinctly 
visible for a few seconds, the object will generally pass off into 
another nearly similar : and when the eyes are familiar with the 
mode in which the transformations most naturally succeed one 
another, the figure may be changed, step by step, into nearly 
any other desired. Thus an arrow may be transformed into a 
fish, the fish into a leaf. 

If, immediately on waking in a dark room, from a dream 
which presented any vivid scene to the eye of the imagination, 
the attention be turned to the spectra before the eyes, particular 



HUMAN MIND ON THE BODY. 



29 



and before awaking him, suggests a long train of 
ideas ; which must all, from the nature of the 
case, have passed through the mind in the space 
of a few seconds only.* " There seems every 
reason to conclude from these facts," he adds, 
" that we only dream during the instant of tran- 
sition into and out of sleep. That instant is 
quite enough to account for the whole of what 
appears a night's dream. It is quite certain we 
remember no more than ought, according to 
these experiments, to fill an instant of time ; and 
there can be no reason why we should only 
recollect this one portion, if we had dreamt much 
more. The fact that we never dream so much 
as when our rest is frequently broken, proves this 
almost to demonstration. An uneasy and restless 
night passed in bed is always a night studded full 
with dreams. If it be said we always or gene- 
rally dream when asleep, but only recollect a 



spots and streaks will be seen, corresponding ivith the most 
prominent objects just before observed in the dream. It is 
scarcely possible to avoid concluding, that dreams are owing 
to an excitement of the nerves of sensation, though of a very- 
faint kind, during imperfect sleep — and that in all mental ope- 
rations in which objects of sense are recollected, there is an 
action of the nerves, similar to that by which a knowledge of 
these objects was originally transmitted to the mind. See Chap- 
ter V. 

* Discourse on Natural Theology. Part i. Sect. v. But does 
it not still remain to be established, whether in fact it is not the 
dream suggested by the sound or sensation, not the sound or 
sensation itself, which, after the interval perhaps of several mi- 
nutes, awakes the sleeper ? 



30 



DEPENDENCE OF THE 



portion of our dream, then the question arises, 
why we recollect a dream each time we fall 
asleep, or are awakened, and no more ? If we 
can recall twenty dreams in a night of inter- 
rupted sleep, how is it that we can only recall 
one or two when our sleep is continued ? The 
length of time occupied by the dream we recollect 
is the only reason that can be given for our 
forgetting the rest ; but this reason fails, if, 
each time we are roused, we remember separate 
dreams." 

If, then, we are absolutely without thoughts, 
during life, except when the communication be- 
tween the mind and the body is, more or less 
perfectly, kept up, may we not conclude that 
death, which interrupts that communication much 
more completely, destroys the power of thought ? 
It may be said that this conclusion is opposed by 
the fact, that the velocity of thought is greater in 
dreams, when the body is only partially awake. 
But this velocity has certainly been much over- 
estimated ; and notwithstanding the facts above 
alluded to, — of persons being awakened by the 
very same sensation, commencing very shortly 
before they were fully awakened, that suggested 
a dream, it is highly probable that thought is on 
these occasions not more rapid than when the 
mind is in a state of excitement during our wak- 
ing hours. This it is thought the following ob- 
servations will render very evident. 

Any one who will consider the nature of the 
impression produced upon his mind, by merely 



HUMAN MIND ON THE BODY. 



31 



reading or hearing, in any real or fictitious nar- 
rative, of a lapse of time, or even by barely 
imagining such a lapse, must be aware that the 
mind is capable of transferring itself from one 
period to another, and getting a general notion 
that a long interval has had place between them, 
without there actually passing through the mind 
the thousa ndth part of th e number of ideas which 
would successively occupy it if that space of time 
were actually lived over. It is very true that we 
measure time, as it passes, by the continuous 
flow of ideas through the mind, and that if the 
rapidity of thought be really capable of an in- 
definite increase, it is perfectly possible that a 
single hour might be, to the individual, practi- 
cally equivalent to all the remaining hours of his 
life put together : but in recollecting or imagining 
a lapse of time, we do not revive in our minds 
the whole current of ideas, but think only of a 
few of the more prominent ; or even without any 
aid from them, think only of the general impres- 
sion which the passage of the current has left, 
or would leave, on our minds. Any one who is 
fully awake can, in a few moments, without any 
extraordinary exertion of thought, imagine him- 
self, or any other person, to be in a considerable 
number of different positions in the world in 
succession. Any one familiar with the original 
description of them, could probably think over 
Shakespear's Seven Ages of Man in less than as 
many seconds. Now if these occurred to him in 
a dream, he would,— it is almost invariably the 



32 



DEPENDENCE OF THE 



case — imagine that he himself was the subject 
that acted or suffered, and passing naturally — for 
all things, however strange, in dreams seem per- 
fectly natural — from one age to another, would, 
if he were to awake immediately on concluding 
the series, imagine he had just lived a life com- 
pletely through. 

In fact, a mental process extremely similar to 
that which has been just supposed, is commonly 
performed by every man, and every day and 
almost hour of his life. Let any one be asked, 
whether he is certain that he did, on a certain 
day long past, himself witness certain transac- 
tions ; or whether he did not hear, from a third 
person, a relation of that which he supposes he 
recollects ; he will perhaps answer without an 
instant's hesitation, that he was himself present 
when the transaction took place. Now whence 
comes this confidence ? It can only be accounted 
for by supposing that the person interrogated 
retraces in his mind a continuous chain of cir- 
cumstances, commencing with matters of actual 
and present consciousness and terminating in the 
transaction which he remembers. He in an 
instant of time perceives the reality of the past 
event, by connecting it in his mind with present 
realities. Similarly, if one were required to 
believe that there did actually exist, no matter 
where, a race of creatures whose heads grew 
beneath their shoulders. In what would the 
(supposed) reality consist ? Plainly in a sup- 
posed connexion between the place of their 



HUMAN MIND ON THE BODY. 



33 



existence and the scene actually present to the 
mind that was imagining- these monsters, and of 
which scene the reality was made known to him 
by immediate consciousness. 

In all such cases as these, the mind rapidly, 
and probably in less than a second of time, runs 
over a long chain of ideas, connecting the pre- 
sent with the past or the remote, or both : omit- 
ting every time that the chain is gone over a 
greater and greater number of intermediate 
ideas, yet never losing the general impression of 
reality, which the evident possibility of connect- 
ing all the ideas link by link, produces in the 
mind. 

The thoughts of the man recur to some inci- 
dent of his boyhood, they pass on to one which 
took place in youth, they terminate in a contem- 
plation of his actual position. This may be the 
work of a moment. Yet, though no intermediate 
incidents are recollected, the idea of the lapse of 
two considerable intervals is distinct and vivid. 
If the same succession of ideas, the same im- 
pression of reality, the same general notion of 
lapses of time can take place in a dream — and 
why should they not? — it would seem that the 
phenomena of dreams prove no such velocity of 
thought, as to encourage the belief that the mind 
is most active when it is least in connection with 
the body. Besides it is far from being entirely 
disconnected during sleep. Cut off it certainly 
is from the external world ; but its connection 
with the brain may be, and probably is, as 

D 



34 



DEPENDENCE OF THE 



intimate as ever ; nor do we know that that 
organ partakes very extensively * in the lethargy 
of the nervous system. 

But we pass on now to the consideration of 
another class of facts, which furnish ground for 
a still stronger argument : and which show that 
the mind sympathises with the body in cases, 
which if not in ordinary language the same, are 
very nearly identical with death. In the case 
of what is commonly called a fainting fit, the 
powers of the body are partially suspended by a 
stupor which sometimes, — as in consequence, for 
example, of a great loss of blood from a wound, — 
terminates in death : and the powers of the mind, 
as far as this can be decided from the total want 
of recollection at least, on the part of the sufferer, 
of any ideas during the state of corporeal stupor, 
are totally suspended. It is true that this is not 
always the case : but these exceptions are never 
found, except where the functions of the brain 
are unimpeded. In very many instances of mor- 
tal injury, whether produced by accident or dis- 
ease, the vital powers may be seen gradually to 
sink, and attacks of total insensibility, mental 
and bodily, succeed one another more and more 
frequently, until at length the pulse ceases to beat, 



* It certainly does in some degree. When the mind is active, 
the blood flows through the brain in a full current. If one be 
suddenly waked from deep sleep, an instantaneous rush of blood 
to the brain may generally be observed. 



HUMAN MIND ON THE BODY. 



35 



and the breath to ebb and flow. Is this cessation 
a symptom of increased energy of the mental 
functions, which just before were torpid, dor- 
mant, paralysed ? The notion is really prepos- 
terous. Religious persons have indeed some 
reason to indulge a belief, that at this critical 
moment the liberated spirit of one whom they 
loved or revered wings its flight to heaven, and 
" wantons in endless being :" for there are many 
passages of Scripture which countenance such a 
belief ; and to those who hang in sorrow over 
the couch of the departed it affords a consolation, 
to which nothing can be added but the hope 
that, after a few short years, they may rejoin 
those whom they have lost. And the same con- 
solatory belief may be traced, here and there, in 
all ages and nations, but the most barbarous, 
among the priests and the common people, the 
poets and the philosophers ; and for this belief 
there have been many different motives, some of 
which will be hereafter considered.* But from 
such of the phenomena of death as have just 



* In Book II. It should be kept in mind, that a real and 
practical difference exists, between a lively and a lifeless faith, 
equally in false religion and in the true. It is not enough that 
a people should possess certain traditionary or speculative doc- 
trines concerning the departed ; nothing short of a lively and 
operative faith in these doctrines (a thing surely not more 
common in heathen than in Christian lands) can raise men to 
the enviable condition of those who — to recognise the important 
historical testimony of St. Paul — " sorrow not, even as the rest, 
who have no hope." 



36 



DEPENDENCE OF THE 



been alluded to, if these alone be considered, no 
other conjecture can be formed, but that opposite 
and more gloomy one, which also is most con- 
sonant with the dark forebodings natural to man, 
when oppressed by the sense of recent calamity, 
that death is a dreamless sleep, a state in 

which ANIMATION IS WHOLLY SUSPENDED ? The 

universal voice of mankind, (confirmed more- 
over, though this is to anticipate, by the declara- 
tions of Scripture) in according to the brutes no 
future state, has sanctioned this conclusion. For 
in the death of the lower animals we witness 
exactly the same decay of intelligence as in the 
death of man ; — the phenomena differ in no 
respect whatever. The universal persuasion, 
therefore, of the mortality of all the inferior 
animals, shows that considerations of another 
kind have induced men to make a distinction in 
favour of their own species. It is thus with 
much probability made to appear that merely 
physical considerations are incapable of furnish- 
ing any hope of the survival of life and con- 
sciousness ; which seem to be so closely inherent 
in, though forming no part of, the bodily frame, 
as to cease from all activity, when that frame 
can no longer sympathise and cooperate with 
them. 

Men have expected an immortality which they 
have denied to the brutes ; but not because 
"mind has an inherent essential indestructi- 
bility," or because " consciousness is one and 
indivisible." There is scarcely any people to 



HUMAN MIND ON THE BODY. 



37 



be found on earth in whose creed are not evident 
indications of an original correspondence with 
that favoured race, to whom were committed the 
oracles of God : scarcely any people whom tra- 
dition has not taught, or rather admonished, to 
expect an existence beyond the grave. And 
some have been threatened by Conscience with 
a retribution in another world; or Hope has 
pictured to them a relief from the pressure of 
distress ; or Affection has tempted them to follow 
the departed into the gloom of Hades, attributing 
to them there an existence at least as substantial 
as that of their imagined dwelling-place ; or the 
manifold motives which conduce to polytheism 
have peopled the universe at first with beings of 
human attributes merely ; then also with spirits 
of earthly origin.* But still the minds of men 
continually recur to the belief, that when man 
returns to his earth, all his thoughts will perish ; 
that there is no knowledge or understanding in 
the grave to which he hastens. And it can never 
be shown that this conclusion is adverse to Scrip- 
ture, which assures men of a resurrection of the 
body, when life and consciousness are restored, 
at the time of the final award. " As the waters 
fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and 



* " Omnia de Superis aut Inferis, de Olympo aut Hade, de 
deorum aut mortuorum sedibus, confusa, incerta et incongrua 

sint Poeta, quce accopisset, tradidit, aucta fortasse et 

ornata, et audientes, quce prorsus nescirent, ingenita anirai 
affectione credere quam arguere maluerunt." — Knight's Prole- 
gomena to Homer. 



38 



DEPENDENCE OF THE MIND 



drieth up ; so man lieth down and riseth not ; 
till the heavens be no more they shall not awake, 
nor be raised out of their sleep." "We shall 
not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a 
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 
trump." 



CHAPTER II. 



THE DEPENDENCE OF THE MEND UPON 
THE BRAIN. 



r I ^HERE are many persons, who, notwith- 
standing the authority of numerous pas- 
sages of Scripture, such as those quoted in the 
last chapter, are averse to the supposition of a 
total sleep after death. The import of the bibli- 
cal texts which seem to promise a state of con- 
sciousness will be considered in the third part of 
this work : our only concern at present is with 
the physical reasons which may be advanced in 
support of such a view. " It is true," it may be 
said, " that we are cut off from the external 
world by the loss of the organs of sense, but the 
faculties of memory, hope, imagination, reason, 
may continue as active as before. Our senses 
tie us down to things immediately around us ; 
but these faculties are able to transport us in a 
moment into the regions of the future and the 



UPON THE BRAIN. 



39 



unseen, and endow us even with a kind of cre- 
ative power ; they burst the bounds of time and 
space, by which all corporeal, all terrestrial things 
are limited, as if in anticipation of a season of 
still greater energy, when they shall be hampered 
no more by this cumbrous clog of clay." 

The dignity of the faculties for which this ex- 
tensive freedom is claimed may, very naturally, 
prevent suspicion in the minds of uninformed 
persons, that they, as well as the bodily senses, 
require a material mechanism for the perform- 
ance of their functions. But nevertheless, the 
number of facts accumulated by modern re- 
searches on this subject is so great, and the con- 
clusion drawn from them so decisive, that it may 
now be unhesitatingly declared, even of the most 
exalted flights of the human mind, that a brain 
is as indispensable to them, as nerves are to 
enable the fingers to feel. " In animals, where 
little mental power exists, there is a propor- 
tionate absence of cerebral organization ; and in 
man, where such mental powers are found in 
the highest degree, the cerebral organization is 
the most elaborate. Again, when in man the 
whole brain has become torpid from disease, an 
alteration takes place, and he is reduced in point 
of intellect to a level with the lowest animals ; he 
is capable of taking his food, but all other volun- 
tary action is lost, in proportion as the disease 
prevails. Now what is the case when the brain 
is excited to an unusual state of activity ? We 
find a corresponding alteration, that is, an in- 



40 



DEPENDENCE OF THE 



creased activity, in the mental manifestations. 
In the ordinary use of fermented liquors, until, 
from their being taken to excess, torpor is super- 
induced by a quasi apoplexy, the operation of 
the mind, the sentiments, and the passions, are 
quickened in the same ratio in which the stimulus 
increases the action of the brain." The 
intellectual powers and feelings are never com- 
pletely restored, if the inflammatory action has 
remained unsubdued until the organization of 
the brain and its membranes has become perma- 
nently injured." ..." It is quite clear that 
every other part of the body may be diseased or 
even totally destroyed ; and still, if the brain 
continue to be healthy, the mental manifestations 
will remain unaffected. May we not then from 
these instances fairly conclude that there is a 
necessary connexion between the mental mani- 
festations and the state of the brain, and that, at 
all events, in these extremes, cases of complete 
torpor and excited action, the injurious alteration 
which results, is to be traced to the state of the 
brain?" "We know that the assistance of the 
brain is necessary to our intellectual manifesta- 
tions, to our sentiments, and to our passions." * 



* Ellis on Insanity, page 18, &c. According to Dr. John 
Abercrombie, however, there are circumstances in which the 
brain has been extensively diseased, " without the phenomena 
of mind being impaired in any sensible degree." This holds true 
both in regard to the destruction of each individual part of the 
brain, and likewise to the extent to which the cerebral mass 
may be diseased or destroyed. " A man mentioned by Dr. Ter- 



MIND UPON THE BRAIN. 



41 



And further, if the superior powers of the 
mind were independent of the bodily organiza- 
tion, those material causes which, as we know, 
destroy sensation, and the power of voluntary 
motion, would not affect them ; and reason, and 
imagination, and whatever faculties are more 
excellent than the rest, would remain in full 
vigour, while the body was in a state of stupor, 
or in convulsions. 

In confirmation of this view that the brain is 
the organ of the mind, without which the latter 
is as incapable of internal action, as it is of per- 
ceiving external things without the bodily senses, 
it may be fearlessly alleged, that each part of the 
brain is the organ of a separate faculty of the 
mind ; and that no faculty exists which has not 
its appropriate organ. These faculties have been 
distinguished; and the brain marked out with 
such precision, as to enable any one who pleases, 
with practice and patient attention, to bring the 



riar, who died of an affection of the brain, retained all his facul- 
ties entire till the very moment of death, which was sudden ; 
on examining his head, the whole right hemisphere, that is, 
one-half of his brain, was found destroyed by suppuration." 
Several other instances, which it is not worth while here to give 
in detail, are mentioned by Dr. Abercrombie. In most of these 
cases, it should be observed, the disease has attacked only one 
side of the head ; and as the organs on each side correspond 
exactly one to the other, each organ being in fact double, 
there is no reason why disease should impair the activity of 
mind in a greater, if in so great a degree, as the loss of one eye 
or ear impairs the faculty of seeing or hearing. 



42 



DEPENDENCE OF THE 



truth of the phrenological theory to an experi- 
mental test. " The organs of the mind can be 
seen and felt, and their size estimated — and the 
mental manifestations also that accompany them 
can be observed, in an unlimited number of in- 
stances." * The truth of the general theory, 
which is all that need here be insisted on, is con- 
firmed not merely by scattered and miscellaneous 
instances, but in well ascertained and striking 
classes of instances. The mental characteristics 
of the principal races and nations of mankind, 
and of the sexes, and of infancy, youth, manhood, 
and old age, are well known, and the agreement 
between the development or deficiency of par- 
ticular faculties and of particular parts of the 
brain is found to subsist, upon so extensive a 
scale, as to preclude the possibility of doubt as 
to the general fact, that the brain is the organ of 
the mind. No faculties, not even those which 
impel us to discover and adore a Supreme Being, 
or recognise the force of moral obligations, can 
in this world dispense with the aid of a material 
mechanism. "j* Immeasurably exalted as we are, 
by the possession of these powers, above the 
brutes, we yet do not appear to have made any 



* The Constitution of Man considered in relation to Ex- 
ternal Objects. By George Coombe. 

f I think it is now too late to deny all foundation to the phre- 
nological system. But as it is a system based upon induction, 
and of such a nature that very material errors of observation 
may be committed, without in the least invalidating the general 
principles, it may be unsafe to assert positively, of any particular 



MIND UPON THE BRAIN. 



43 



approach, physically speaking, to an exemption 
from the general law of mortality. 

If it is reasonable to conclude, that after death 
we shall no longer feel, or hear, or see, because 
those material organs are destroyed, or impeded 
in some essential function, by which we felt and 
heard and saw, it is also reasonable to conclude 
that we shall cease to think, when the organs of 
thought are rendered incapable of action. 

It is very possible that the real nature and 
force of this conclusion may be misapprehended. 
It does not go so far as to assert, that nothing 
beyond mere particles of matter survives the 
dissolution of the body. For though we be in- 
capable of thought or feeling, an immaterial prin- 
ciple which once animated the body, and by 
which, or rather with which, we thought and 
felt, may still continue to exist. But it does 
assert, that, at death, a suspension, a total sus- 
pension of every faculty of the mind ensues. 

Such a suspension of the mental energies some- 
times takes place without the dissolution of the 
body ; in consequence of some severe bodily 
injury or other impediment to the corporeal 
functions ; and ceases when the impediment is 
removed. " A man was pressed on board one of 



organ, that its precise position and functions are ascertained. 
But those of the organs of Veneration and Conscientiousness 
are not considered by phrenologists as comparatively ill ascer- 
tained. If the suggestion of Dr. Mayo, in his " Pathology of 
the Human Mind," pp. 55, 56, should prove true, phrenology 
will gain both in simplicity of principles and practical certainty. 



44 



DEPENDENCE OF THE 



his majesty's ships, early in the late revolutionary 
war. While on board this vessel, in the Medi- 
terranean, he received a fall from the yard-arm, 
and when he was picked up, was found to be 
insensible." So he continued for a long space of 
time, utterly incapable of motion, except of the 
lips and tongue when he wanted food. Above 
thirteen months afterwards he was trepanned, 
and gradually, in the space of four or five days, 
recovered his senses. " For a period of thirteen 
months and some days," says Sir A. Cooper, 
"his mind had remained in a state of perfect 
oblivion; he had drunk, as it were, the cup of 
Lethe ; he had suffered a complete death as far 
as regarded his mental, and almost all his bodily 
powers ; but by removing a small portion of bone 
with the saw, he was at once restored to all the 
functions of his mind, and almost all the powers 
of his body." It is to no purpose to inquire what 
becomes of the immaterial part during the inter- 
val of torpor : or attempt to decide whether it 
ceases to be, or merely ceases to act. All con- 
sciousness ceases — and arguing from analogy we 
suppose that the same thing happens when we 
die ; and it matters but little whether any living 
powers, or thinking principles survive, if con- 
sciousness be gone. We may believe, if we will, 
that something survives the dissolution of the 
body, which is capable of being put into new 
relations with matter, of inhabiting and using a 
new or a renovated body ; or of being made to 
think and feel, and perceive external objects, and 



MIND UPON THE BRAIN. 



45 



even act upon them, without any body whatever. 
But that it actually will be put into new relations 
with matter ; or that it will be endued with powers, 
(which now it certainly does not possess,) of per- 
ceiving or acting on external things, or perform- 
ing any process of thought, without bodily organs, 
we have no reason whatever to expect, unless 
upon moral or religious grounds. 

The force of this conclusion will be more clearly 
seen, if the nature of the mutual dependency of 
mind and body be attentively considered. Nei- 
ther of the two, so far as we can discover, is 
capable of acting by itself. Matter, as has been 
already observed, is, by itself, inert and insensate : 
and so also is mind, except when matter, in pecu- 
liar forms, and in states in a great measure in- 
comprehensible to us, is cooperating with it. It 
would be incorrect to consider the expressions, 
" mind and matter," and " mind and bod?/," as 
equivalent. The body may be insensate, but it 
certainly is not inert. All organized matter has 
a certain inherent activity. Upon the ink in the 
glass before the writer, a greenish mould will 
appear, after a short exposure to the air ; pos- 
sessing in itself a power of growth and motion, 
apparently as much its own, as independent of 
the Creator, as are the minds of the highest 
earthly creatures, who in Him live, and move, 
and have their being. Nor is the human body 
more inert in itself than is the human mind, or 
the mould upon the ink. 



46 



DEPENDENCE OF THE 



A stunning blow on the head, as has been before 
observed, will render the human mind as inert and 
insensate as the weapon that inflicted the injury. 
It would seem, then, that a thinking principle, or 
sentient principle, or living power may continue 
to exist, without the continuance of thought or 
sensation, or any kind of mental life, or con- 
sciousness. Of this fact most persons in health 
have a practical proof, every night of their lives. 
Language does not admit of a stronger expres- 
sion, to indicate a total cessation of consciousness, 
than dreamless sleep. From such a sleep we 
wake, as often as it pleases the Creator, and our 
mental powers come back to us, — whence we 
know not. We suppose that they existed in some 
mode during the interval of sleep, though we had 
no consciousness. " Sleep, or however a swoon," 
argues Dr. Butler, in his Analogy of Religion, 
" shows us not only that these powers exist when 
they are not exercised, as the passive power of 
motion does in inanimate matter ; but shows also 
that they'exist, when there is no present capacity 
of exercising them : or that the capacities of ex- 
ercising them for the present, as well as the actual 
exercise of them, may be suspended, and yet the 
powers themselves remain undestroyed." " There 
have been instances of madness and apoplexy, in 
which all the ordinary operations of the mind 
having been completely suspended for several 
years, the patients, on the recovery of their 
senses, have been found totally unconscious of 
the whole interval, and distinctly remembering 



MIND UPON THE BRAIN. 



47 



and speaking of, as having happened the day 
before, events which occurred before the injuries ; 
so that they could hardly be brought to believe 
that whole years had since elapsed." * 

A want of attention to this distinction between 
mental powers and actual consciousness, or at 
least, an under estimate of its importance, has led 
many writers into error, in arguing on physical 
grounds for the immortality of the soul. " What- 
ever other effects death may have," observes Dr. 
Brown, "it is at least evident that when it has 
taken place, the bodily organs moulder away, by 
the influence of a decomposition more or less 
rapid. What was once to our eyes a human 
being, is a human being no more ; and where the 
organization is as if it had never been, every 
feeling and thought, if states of mere organs, 
must be also as if they had never been. The 
most interesting of all questions therefore, with 
respect to our hopes of immortality, is whether 
thought be a state of the mere organs which 
decay thus evidently before our eyes, or a state 
of something which our senses, that are confined 
to the mere organs, cannot reach ; of something 
which, as it is beyond the reach of our senses, 
may therefore subsist as well, when every thing 
which comes under our senses, exists in any one 
state, as in any other state." f And in a pre- 



* " A View of the Scripture Revelations concerning a Future 
State. By a Country Pastor." (The Archbishop of Dublin.) 
\ Dr. Brown on the Mind. Lecture xcvii. 



48 



DEPENDENCE OF THE 



ceding passage the same great metaphysician 
says, " the belief of the immateriality of the sen- 
tient and thinking principle destroys the only 
analogy on which the supposition of the limita- 
tion of its existence to the period of our mortal 
life could be founded." 

But though thought be a state of something 
which our senses cannot reach, and which sur- 
vives the dissolution of the body, of what value 
are our hopes of immortality, if the action of the 
sentient and thinking principle be suspended ; 
if, though the mental powers remain undestroyed, 
there be no "capacity of exercising them?" A 
swoon can in a moment deprive us of this capa- 
city ; sleep appears to produce the same effect ; 
and every analogy leads us to suppose that we 
shall suffer a deprivation no less total, when we 
sleep the sleep of death. For the purposes of the 
argument of Bishop Butler, in his chapter Of a 
Future Life, it was sufficient to show, that we 
have no reason to conclude, from the dissolution 
of the body, that the principle by which we think 
and feel is necessarily destroyed. By proving 
that it may, and probably does subsist, all preju- 
dice, all a priori objections are removed, to the 
probability of that future life, a belief in which 
natural religion dictates, and which is positively 
declared by revelation. In carrying his argu- 
ment beyond this point, Butler has relied too 
much on a supposed independency of the higher 
powers of the mind on the body. " Human crea- 
tures," he says, " exist at present in two states of 



MIND UPON THE BRAIN. 



49 



life and perception, greatly different from each 
other ; each of which has its own peculiar laws, 
and its own peculiar enjoyments and sufferings. 
When any of our senses are affected, or appetites 
gratified with the objects of them, we may be said 
to exist, or live, in a state of sensation. When 
none of our senses are affected, or appetites 
gratified, and yet we perceive, and reason, and 
act, we may be said to exist, or live, in a state of 
reflection. Now it is by no means certain, that 
any thing which is dissolved by death is in any 
way necessary to the living being, in this its state 
of reflection, after ideas are gained. For though, 
from our present constitution and condition of 
being, our external organs of sense are necessary 
for conveying in ideas to our reflecting powers, 
as carriages and levers and scaffolds are in archi- 
tecture ; yet, when these ideas are brought in, we 
are capable of reflecting in the most intense de- 
gree, and of enjoying the greatest pleasure, and 
feeling the greatest pain, without any assistance 
from our senses ; and without any at all, which 
we know of, from that body which will be dis- 
solved by death." . . . " There appears so little 
connexion between our bodily powers of sensa- 
tion, and our present powers of reflection, that 
there is no reason to conclude that death, which 
destroys the former, does so much as suspend the 
exercise of the latter, or interrupt our continuing 
to exist in the like state of reflection, which we 
do now." . . . " Our daily experiencing these 
powers to be exercised, without any assistance 

E 



50 



DEPENDENCE OF THE 



that we know of, from those bodies which will be 
dissolved by death ; and our finding often, that 
the exercise of them is so lively to the last; — 
these things afford a sensible apprehension, that 
death may not perhaps be so much as a discon- 
tinuance of the exercise of these powers, nor of 
the enjoyments and sufferings which it implies." 

Many of the physical facts which prove the 
dependence of our powers of reflection upon 
" that body which will be dissolved by death" 
were unknown in the days of Bishop Butler. The 
indispensable necessity to our present powers of 
reflection of a brain, developed to a definite ex- 
tent, and of a sufficient degree of health and 
soundness, was not then recognised. The facts, 
however, that every kind, or nearly every kind, 
of bodily affection, or injury, — such as sleep, a 
swoon, or a stunning blow, — that destroys sen- 
sation, does equally destroy reflection ; tending 
as these facts certainly do, to imply a close de- 
pendency, might have led him to a different con- 
clusion. It has since been demonstrated, that 
any cause which, though it may not deprive a 
man of his animal powers, renders his brain 
torpid, destroys his powers of reflection as imme- 
diately and effectually, as a disease of the retina 
will sometimes destroy the power of sight. It is 
impossible not to conclude, therefore, that our 
bodies are just as necessary to us, when we "live 
in a state of reflection" as when we " live in a 
state of sensation" For the continuance of this 
latter state after death, Butler never argues: 



MIND UPON THE BRAIN. 



51 



although it is evident that sensation is not alto- 
gether a corporeal and material function, but 
that there must be some sentient principle be- 
sides, of the destruction of which, at death, he 
would be the first person to deny that there is 
any proof. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE BODY NO IMPEDIMENT TO THE MIND. 



THERE is only one hypothesis by which the 
force of the conclusion drawn from the 
dependency of the mind on the body can be 
diminished. It is that, which supposes our mental 
powers to possess an independent energy of their 
own, much greater than they are in this world 
permitted to exercise ; and, far from being aided 
and promoted in their action by the co-operation 
of the body, to be limited and impeded by it. 
Relying on this hypothesis, Dr. Brown considers 
the temporary or permanent loss of reflecting 
powers in consequence of a nervous affection to 
be a proof of nothing more than a susceptibility 
of the soul to be affected by the body to which 
the Creator has united it ; and " to be no proof 
of the soul's mortality." Now the loss of reflect- 
ing powers, to which Dr. Brown here alludes, 
("from the influence of disease, or of age, which 



52 



THE BODY NO IMPEDIMENT 



is indeed itself a species of disease,") may cer- 
tainly prove something more than a mere suscep- 
tibility of the soul to suffer injury through the 
body ; and yet be no proof of the mortality of the 
thinking principle. A healthy condition of the 
nerves may do more, and many facts have been 
advanced in the preceding pages with an endea- 
vour to prove that it actually does more for the 
soul, than merely permit the unimpeded exercise 
of its powers. It enables the mind to act. Such 
is the condition of human life, which consists in 
the mutual action of mind and body. " L'homme 
est a lui meme le plus prodigieux objet de la 
nature ; car il ne peut concevoir ce que c'est que 
corps, et encore moins ce que c'est qu'esprit, et 
moins qu'aucune chose comment un corps peut 
etre uni avec un esprit. C'est la le comble de 
ses difficult es, et cependant c'est son propre etre. 
Modus quo corporibus adhseret spiritus compre- 
hendi ab hominibus non potest ; et hoc tamen 
homo est" * 

But on the supposition of Dr. Brown, — a sup- 
position of which many writers on this subject 
have made use, — our bodies form no part of our- 
selves, nor are we in any way indebted to. them 
for our enjoyment of mental energy. To this 
effect is his quotation from Cicero : — " Suppose 
a person to have been educated from infancy in 
a chamber, in which he could see objects only 
through a small chink in the window shutter, 



* Pensees de Pascal. Article vi. sect. 26. 



TO THE MIND. 



53 



would he not be apt to consider this chink as 
essential to his vision, and would it not be diffi- 
cult to persuade him that his prospect would be 
enlarged by the demolition of the walls of his 
temporary prison ?" * On which he observes, " In 
such a case as that which Cicero has supposed, 
if the analogy may be extended to the present 
objection, it is evident at least, that if the aper- 
ture were closed for years, or if the light trans- 
mitted through it were merely altered in tint, by 
the interposition of some coloured transparent 
body, these changes would as little imply any 
blindness or defect of vision, as if the darkening 
or tinging of the light had occurred only for a 
few moments." It is evident, certainly, that 
whether the aperture be closed or left open, or 
the chamber demolished wholly or in part, the 
faculty of sight of the person within, — who is 



* This was a favourite view of the great Roman philosopher. 
In the first book of his Tusculan Disputations he says " there 
is no faculty of sensation in the body ; but certain passages as 
it were, are hollowed out, from the seat of the mind" [the 
brain] u to the eyes, the nose, and the ears." And a little 
further on, " Although nature has wrought those openings which 
lead to the mind from the body, in the most skilful and work- 
manlike manner, they are nevertheless blocked up in some 
degree by gross and earthy matter; but when there shall be 
nothing except mind" [i. e. after death] "no obstacle will pre- 
vent its perceiving the qualities and natures of things." 

This is as if we should improve our vision by taking out our 
eyes : which he treats as mere impediments, — blocking up the 
openings. Cicero is not the only philosopher who has been led 
into absurdity by the attempt to detect in physical phenomena 
confirmations of moral truths or conjectures. 



54 



THE BODY NO IMPEDIMENT 



analogous to the thinking and sentient principle 
belonging, for a time at least, to the body, — would 
not be at all affected : but for the exercise of the 
faculty of sight he would be entirely dependent 
on the condition of the chamber. But there is 
no sort of resemblance between the breaking 
down the prison walls, and the dissolution of the 
body. If the aperture be supposed to correspond 
with the bodily eye, then the enlargement of the 
aperture to any extent, even to an entire demo- 
lition of the walls, would correspond with en- 
larged powers of vision, not effected by a destruc- 
tion, but by an enlargement or multiplication of 
the corporeal organs of vision. And on the other 
hand, if the chamber resemble the body, within 
which the mind is confined, then the walls, the 
floor, and the roof correspond with the different 
parts of the body ; but the aperture, which is 
nothing but a mere negative idea, — the absence 
of wall, cannot possibly correspond with any 
part of the body. In common speech, or rather 
in the language of many reflecting persons, the 
body is called a "house of clay," an "earthly 
tabernacle," and the mind is said to " dwell 
within it." But these expressions, natural, and 
just, and beautiful as they are, when employed 
by those who are convinced, on better authority 
than any physical speculation can afford, that 
the mind will inhabit another mansion hereafter, 
must be cautiously used, as the basis of a philo- 
sophical theory. They must not be permitted to 
lead us to the conclusion, that the body acts as a 



TO THE MIND. 



55 



screen, hindering us from perceiving external 
objects ; or is an obstacle to our acting upon 
them, or a clog upon the intrinsic activity of our 
thoughts. Surely it would be unreasonable to 
conclude that our nerves hinder us from feeling 
external objects, and that sensation would be more 
acute without them. From this extravagance 
Butler happily escaped ; he had discrimination 
enough to see that those mental powers, to which 
bodily organs were attached, were dependent on 
the organs. But, owing probably to his ignorance 
or inconsideration of the functions of the brain, 
he committed the same error in respect of the re- 
flecting, as Cicero did in respect of the sentient 
faculties. The Roman philosopher, not per- 
ceiving that the eye was an organ of sight, sup- 
posed that vision would be more perfect after 
the dissolution of the body ; and the error of the 
English philosopher arose from a similar cause. 
The same reasoning that led Butler to differ from 
Cicero, should have led him one step further — 
to a rejection of the notion that our reflecting 
powers are physically immortal. 

The Creator has not given us any general 
power of perceiving things without, but has only 
given us a consciousness of certain changes which 
external objects produce in particular parts of 
our corporeal frame, when that frame is in good 
condition. Does the fact that we are so restricted 
now, or any other physical fact, warrant us in 
supposing, that we shall not be restricted here- 
after ? In like manner, the powers of the mind 



56 



THE BODY NO IMPEDIMENT 



differ in different individuals, and depend inva- 
riably upon the physical condition of the brain. 
Does this, or any other physical fact, justify the 
conclusion, that when the brain is rendered utterly 
inefficient, the powers of thought will be equal in 
all men, — or greater, in each instance, than they 
were before ? 

Besides, what are we to assign as the actual 
limits of our powers, after the dissolution of the 
body, if they then retain, and more than retain, 
their former energy ? To what regions of the 
universe are our perceptions to extend, when the 
bodily screen, if a screen it be, is removed : and 
what are to be the confines of human knowledge 
when we are no longer clogged and encumbered 
by the brain ? 

Is the enforcement of the penalty of death, 
imposed for the original transgression, to render 
men as gods, knowing all good and evil ? and to 
defeat the purpose of their expulsion from Para- 
dise, by enabling them to lay hold on the fruit of 
the Tree of Life ? This difficulty may fairly sug- 
gest a doubt, whether the dependency, or con- 
nection, of mind with body, is more than the 
necessary limitation to which created beings are 
subjected. He, who by the Word of His power,* 



* It is worthy of observation, that in the account of creation 
in Genesis, God is represented rather as speaking than as acting : 
that the universe appears to be not so much the work of His 
hands, as of His word. " God said, let there be light, and 



TO THE MIND. 



57 



called the universe into existence, and has, through 
the same Word, sustained it ever since, has 
alone the privilege of direct, unlimited commu- 
nication with, and operation upon, all material 
things. Every particle of matter in the universe 
obeys his laws, and each, separately, and at every 
instant, whether it be in motion or at rest, is 
affected by His will. The Creator has granted 
to us a partial power over our own bodies, ap- 
parently analogous to His own infinite power 
over the created universe. We are capable of 
moving our limbs ; and whether the contraction 
of the muscles be the effect of a direct operation 
of the will, or whether the will affects the nerves, 
or the brain, and they, or both of them, influence 
the muscular fibres, by some cause over which 
we have no control, — whether the effect of our 
will be chemical, or mechanical, or of any other 
kind, — it is clear that the effect, the motion, ori- 
ginates in a direct action of mind upon certain 
particles of matter. We have not this power over 
all matter, nor can we, by any exertion of will, 
subject one particle of matter to its control. 

And He by whom all material changes are 
perceived at once, and not by any communicating 
media or any series of effects, has likewise granted 
to us and to the inferior animals a partial power 



there was light." " God said, let us make man in our own 
image." Here is disguised, under the garb of rude and simple 
language, and in the form of a traditionary tale, one of the pro- 
foundest mysteries of our faith. 



58 



THE BODY NO IMPEDIMENT 



apparently analogous to his own. We are imme- 
diately conscious of certain changes taking place 
in particular particles of our bodies. When we 
feel pain in an extremity of the body, it may be 
that the mind is as it were brought into contact 
with that extremity, and is immediately conscious 
of the effect on the nerves situated there : or, for 
aught that we can discover, an influence is trans- 
mitted to the brain, and thence to the mind. But 
however long the circuit, however numerous the 
series of effects, it is clear that the material part 
of the process of sensation must have a termination 
somewhere ; that there are some material changes, 
some states of matter, of which the mind is directly 
conscious. Our knowledge of all immaterial ex- 
istences (besides our own) is yet more closely 
limited : since we have not even a partial know- 
ledge of them of the direct kind ; all our informa- 
tion concerning them being gathered from their 
effects on material things.* Now if we suppose 
that these powers of sensation or motion are re- 



* It would be out of place to make more than a passing 
notice of the exceptions to this statement, which Revelation has 
disclosed to us. The influence of the Holy Spirit, and of the 
Evil Spirit upon the minds of men, is of the direct kind ; and 
the former influence undoubtedly, perhaps the latter also, occa- 
sionally becomes the subject of human consciousness. It has 
been well observed that the influence of spirit on spirit, or mind 
on mind, which to some persons seems so incredible a thing, is 
really less strange than the influence of matter on mind, with 
which all are familiar. It is impossible to conceive how any 
points of contact, so to speak, can be established between things 
so utterly dissimilar as are mind and matter. 



TO THE MIND. 



59 



tained after death, not in a passive, or latent 
state, but with an energy unlimited by the body, 
where is the line to be drawn between our share 
and that of other disembodied spirits, nay even 
between our share and that which the Almighty 
himself holds under his especial and absolute con- 
trol ? Upon what portions of matter, organized 
or unorganized, is our faculty of producing mo- 
tion to be exerted ? certainly on no part of this 
sublunary world ; in which, as we know from 
constant experience, all motion obeys either the 
laws, that is, the will, of the Author of Nature, 
or the will of embodied creatures : this stage the 
dead have altogether quitted, and can play their 
part on it no more, whether for evil or for good. 
And where are we to find room for the exercise 
of the sentient principle ? Not in this world ; 
though the mere sensation of earthly things by 
incorporeal beings could occasion no inference 
with any thing that is transacted here : — it would 
be absurd to suppose a total disunion between 
this faculty, and that of producing motion — to 
assign one world to the spiritual hand, and ano- 
ther to the spiritual eye. 

" Let then these faculties of sensation and 
voluntary motion," it may be replied, " since 
they are common to the lowest animals as well 
as man, and seem from the very necessity of the 
case to require a body through which to act, 
perish, or become inactive, when the body is de- 
stroyed. The reflecting faculties are not under 



60 



THE BODY NO IMPEDIMENT 



the same necessity : sensation must reside some- 
where ; motion also is restricted by the limits 
of space ; but thought has no relation to place, 
and may therefore go on as well after death as 
before." 

That such a distinction as is here supposed is 
inadmissible, flows as a necessary consequence 
from the facts which have been already men- 
tioned, in proof of the dependence of the reflect- 
ing powers on the body. The union of these 
powers with the brain is not less intimate than 
that of the sentient powers with the nerves : both 
alike are subject to a corporeal limitation, and 
stand in relation to place. It would surely be the 
height of presumption in us, to question the pro- 
priety of this arrangement, and declare it to be 
unnecessary. We cannot suppose that Nature 
acts like an ignorant workman, who improperly 
applies a general direction of which he does not 
comprehend the spirit, so as to produce a super- 
ficial resemblance, in cases between which there 
is really no analogy. If the higher faculties have 
a brain belonging to them, it is for some better 
reason than because the lower faculties have 
nerves ; and further, if the sentient principle 
ceases to act after death, its inactivity must be 
the result of an inherent inability to act. And 
the moving principle, if the faculty of producing 
motion may be so termed, must be under a similar 
disability. It would be absurd to think that they 
will be inactive — that they are inactive now, in 
the case of those who have already suffered death 



TO THE MIND. 



61 



— on account of any inconveniency that would arise 
from their acting. If the powers which now depend 
on nerves do not act after death, it must therefore 
be in consequence of an inherent inability to act, 
in a disembodied state. And we are not entitled 
to exempt the reflecting powers from the same 
disqualification that affects the others ; and to 
conclude, because no inconveniences would arise 
from their activity, and it would be easy to sup- 
pose them active, that therefore they are active. 

In a word, since in this world the reflecting 
powers of the mind do not act without the aid of 
a material organization, although they do not 
appear to be necessarily related to place as the 
sentient and moving powers are, we must infer, — 
if we have a due estimate of the wisdom of all 
natural arrangements, — and are convinced that 
nothing, not even one slender fibre of a brain, is 
vainly made,— that all the mental powers alike, 
the highest as well as the lowest, cannot act 
without such aid from the corporeal frame. In 
forming this conclusion, we by no means deny or 
call in question the power of the omnipotent 
God, to cause the soul of man to exist in a sepa- 
rate state, if such should be His will. The 
conclusion amounts merely to a denial of any 
capability of the mental powers, as at present 
constituted, for independent activity : and in no 
wise contradicts the supposition that they may 
be rendered active after death, by some change 
in their nature then to be effected. Physical dis- 
coveries having shown that all the mental powers, 



62 



THE BODY NO IMPEDIMENT 



(whether peculiar to man, or common to the 
lowest animals,) are in an equally intimate union 
with matter ; and that even the highest faculties 
do not dispense with a brain, but act by means of 
a brain, we conclude that all will meet the same 
fate, on the dissolution of the body ; though there 
does not appear to be the same d priori necessity 
or expediency for the action of the higher facul- 
ties by material organs, as of the lower. 

But we are not destitute of reasons for the 
conjecture, that the union of the higher, as well 
as the lower, powers of the mind, with matter, is 
an arrangement if not absolutely necessary, yet 
highly expedient, and peculiarly adapted for 
man, (if indeed we sufficiently understand what 
are the essential conditions of human existence ;) 
and from which a departure cannot be rendered 
probable, by any argument based merely on phy- 
sical researches. " The blending of mind and 
matter in the bodily structure of the sentient and 
rational orders, we may be assured, is a method 
of procedure, which if it be not absolutely indis- 
pensable to the final purposes of the creation, 
subserves the most important ends, and carries 
with it consequences such as will make it the 
general, if not the universal law, of all finite 
natures, in all worlds. A little attention to what 
is involved in the idea of corporeal existence 
will incline us to believe that it is the basis of 
intellectual activity, of moral agency, and of com- 
munion or sociality among intelligent orders." 



TO THE MIND. 



03 



Body is the tangential point of the two 
worlds of mind and matter ; or it is the amalgam 
of two substances wherein the properties of both 
are so blended as to constitute a mean, essentially 
unlike what could have resulted from any pos- 
sible construction of the one, by itself. The body 
is to the mind the means of a mode of existence, 
and the organ of an exertion of powers, which in 
its incorporeal state it could never have known 
and exercised. If, metaphorically speaking, mat- 
ter is refined and ennobled by its union with 
mind, it is mind that is really advantaged there- 
by, for it is absolutely indifferent to matter, 
whether it be left in a grosser state, or be wrought 
into a more elaborate form. On the contrary, 
by compounding itself with matter, mind takes 
possession of a world foreign to itself, and in a 
sense, doubles its powers of action, and its sphere 
of existence." " It is as embodied that mind 
comes under the potent and sovereign discipline 
of organic pleasures and pains, and how large a 
portion of its history hinges upon this suscepti- 
bility ! Probably the whole of that peremptory 
and efficacious impulse which is necessary for 
putting the intellectual and moral faculties in 
activity springs from this exposure of mind to the 
stimulating properties of matter ; — that is to say, 
from its corporeal constitution." * 

The view, which is here so clearly set forth, 
of the importance if not the necessity of matter 



* Physical Theory of Another Life, pages 21, 19, 20. 



64 



THE BODY NO IMPEDIMENT 



to the functions of mind, is perhaps the soundest 
of all that could possibly be formed on physical 
principles exclusively. And it is therefore fair 
to adopt it in this part of the present work, as 
an argument for the physical improbability of the 
activity of the mind, after the dissolution of the 
body. But it may be well to observe, — although 
this is to anticipate part of a subsequent inquiry, 
— that it is apparently contrary to the conclusion 
which should be drawn from various passages of 
Scripture, and particularly from that which the 
ingenious author of the Physical Theory has 
selected, out of a great multitude which bear 
upon the subject, as the basis of his reasonings 
— St. Paul's declaration that there is a spiritual 
body : an expression certainly very obscure, but 
from which it may be fairly conjectured, that 
without the aid of matter — which would seem to 
be rather a condition of the "natural body" — 
mind may be subjected to limitations ; — which it 
is highly probable will be in a great degree ana- 
logous to those which matter now imposes on it. 

It would be unjust to adopt these passages 
without observing that their eloquent author, — 
who, consistently with the Scriptural view which 
he takes of his subject, throughout his work re- 
gards the Creator as a moral governor, — when 
considering this branch of the inquiry in detail, 
represents the future union of mind with matter 
as probable, both from the apparent expediency 
of such a union,— as for instance, in blending and 
harmonizing by means of bodily emotions, the 



TO THE MIND. 



65 



otherwise conflicting faculties, or in regulating 
the social intercourse and communion of different 
minds ; — and also from its necessity as a restraint 
upon the otherwise too great intensity of action 
of the spiritual part. 

Thus, of our mental power of producing motion 
he says, " The mind impels matter with the cele- 
rity of lightning, and with a force that is bounded, 
as it seems, only by the adhesive strength of the 
engine it employs ; that is to say, by the solidity 
of the bones, the tenacity of the ligatures and 
tendons, and the degree in which the irritability 
of the fleshy substance may be wrought upon." 

The mind has then, according to this view, a 
sort of general and inherent tendency to put 
matter into activity, limited only (and it is diffi- 
cult to see how, if it exist, it can be subjected 
even to this limitation) by what may be called 
the passive force, that is, the adhesive power, of 
the matter on which it operates. But it appears 
that the wdiole animal creation, including even 
creatures whose outward appearance would at 
first sight lead us to class them among inanimate 
things, and which can hardly be conceived to 
have any mind at all, partake in their several 
degrees of a similar moving power. Does not 
this obvious fact suggest a suspicion that the force 
by which matter is moved is a mere brute force, 
subject indeed, to a certain extent, to the control 
of the will, but resident rather in matter than in 
mind ; and either directly arising from, or con- 
stituting an essential part of, that mysterious 

F 



66 



THE BODY NO IMPEDIMENT 



principle of animal life, which belongs to, and 
perishes with, the body ? 

In observing a man of finely proportioned 
frame and vigorous health, performing some 
bodily exercise with grace and dexterity, we may 
easily forget the immediate source from which 
the movements proceed. Every muscle is under 
the control of the will, every fibre of the frame 
seems to be instinct with mind. But a slight yet 
irritating wound disorders his nervous system ; 
and, in a few hours' space, the same man is 
stretched helplessly on the ground, in violent 
convulsions, and conscious of nothing but severe 
bodily pain. By what mental force * are these 
fearful contortions produced ? Surely the body 
of this man is something more than a mere aggre- 
gate of passive particles, and is " impelled with 
the celerity of lightning" by some other agent 
than his rational and immortal soul ! f 

And further, can we trace in any inherent 
tendency of the human mind to put matter in 



* The expression " mental force " is used in reference to the 
human mind, and as opposed to material, mechanical, or animal 
force. Strictly speaking, and with reference to the Supreme 
Mind, every material force is mental, as being the direct result 
of His perpetually sustaining Will. 

\ There is some reason to believe that physiologists are now 
on the brink of the great discovery, that all muscular move- 
ments are caused by a galvanic action transmitted from the 
brain — the seat, or rather object, of will — to the nerves. Should 
this prove to be the case, the impulse will be literally commu- 
nicated " with the celerity of lightning." 



TO THE MIND. 



67 



motion, the cause of those corporeal movements 
which are continued, from the earliest to the 
latest hour of our lives, not only without any 
effort of our will, but even without our conscious- 
ness ? The beating of the heart and the heaving 
of the chest go on as well when we sleep as when 
we wake ; and with these functions the mind 
never interferes except to disturb their natural 
regularity, generally against our will.* It is 
evident then that there reside in our bodies some 
forces at least, which are not derived from our 
minds ; and when we further observe that even 
those parts of our bodies which are in general 
subject to the control of the will, are sometimes 
withdrawn from that control, — by convulsions, 
or cramp, or paralysis, or by mere fatigue, — and 
subjected on some occasions to a moving influ- 
ence far more powerful than any which the will 
can exert, it appears not unreasonable to con- 
clude, that the whole of the moving force we 
possess is of a material, or rather animal kind. 

Not that we ought to infer from these facts, 
that the mind possesses no moving power. The 
Creator has put certain parts of our frame, and 
some of the forces residing within that frame, 
under our control to a certain extent, and has 



* In spring time the sap circulates through the young shoots 
of the vine-plant with a rapidity greater than that of the blood 
in the veins of a hybernating animal. Is there any reason to 
suppose that the current is impelled by mind in one case, and 
not in the other?— -Gilbert Whites Natural History of Sel- 
borne. 



68 



THE BODY NO IMPEDIMENT 



permitted us by an exertion of the will, producing 
some corporeal change, the nature of which we 
cannot comprehend, ultimately, by means of a 
series of corporeal influences, to cause certain 
muscles to contract, and thus effect the desired 
movements of the limbs. These movements are 
not effected by a direct operation of mind, but 
by means, as has been said, of a series of cor- 
poreal influences, so that the ultimate effect, the 
motion, may be varied or prevented, or even alto- 
gether produced by, the interposition of some 
organic cause.* As one in authority says to his 
servant " come," and he cometh, to another "go" 
and he goeth, to a third " do this" and he doeth 
it, and the tasks they perform are often far beyond 
the strength or skill of him who orders them, so 
under the direction of the will, the body puts 
forth a strength which is properly its own : nor 
can any indication be discovered of a mechanical 
force, properly belonging to the mind. 

It was before observed that "the Creator has 
granted to us a partial [motive] power over our 
own bodies apparently analogous to his own infi- 
nite power over the created universe." But this 
must not be admitted without some qualification. 



* If the influence of mind were immediate, nothing (but 
some imperfection of structure) could prevent the absolute 
obedience of the limbs to the mind, and they would in every 
case perform precisely the movement it prescribed ; so that 
what is commonly called awkwardness, or want of dexterity, 
could not then exist, and practice could not confer any addi- 
tional expertness. 



TO THE MIND. 



69 



Both philosophy and revelation declare that "in 
Him, the Creator, we live and move and have our 
being. All our strength is, in the most literal sense 
of the words, and in the most direct manner, de- 
rived from Him. Our partial power, then, is analo- 
gous to His in its effect, motion, and in its cause, 
will ; but differs from His, not only in being finite, 
(which would in nowise affect the justness of the 
analogy) but also in being mediate, in operating 
by a chain of causes and effects ordained and 
supported and made to succeed one another by 
His will. The bodily strength by which we ac- 
complish motion is as independent of our finite 
mind, and proceeds as immediately from the 
Author of nature, as does the force which binds 
together the particles of which our bodies are 
composed, or that incessant energy which com- 
pels the planets to fulfil their " fore writ ten cir- 
cles." 

Next in order of rank above the faculty of 
producing motion is the faculty of sensation. It 
is worth while to consider whether this faculty 
also is of so corporeal a nature, as to lead us to 
suppose, that no actual susceptibility of feeling 
survives the dissolution of the body. To such a 
conclusion we are led, by perceiving that sensa- 
tion is local, and resides in the body, though 
operating upon the mind. It is by means of 
a material medium that our minds receive those 
ideas which we ascribe to sensation ; and we can 
discover no trace of a capacity of feeling, apart 



70 



THE BODY NO IMPEDIMENT 



from our bodily organization. The phenomena 
of somnambulism, little understood as they are 
at the present day, render it probable that a much 
larger part of the process of sensation is indepen- 
dent of consciousness and volition than we should 
at first suspect. Almost all the movements of our 
bodies, when we are awake, are suggested and 
regulated by our sensations. A man is able to 
stand upright, or to walk, when in the dark, or 
when his eyes are closed, by sensations, which, 
indicating an increase or diminution of pressure 
on one or the other side of his feet, and of his 
body generally, warn him in time, of any depar- 
ture from the necessary positions. 

And it would appear at first sight that the 
assistance of the mind is necessary to this process : 
that it must be conscious of certain sensations, 
and exert volition accordingly. But we find that 
in fact neither are required. Impressions are 
transmitted from the nerves to the brain of a 
somnambulist, and motion, such motion as the 
sleeper is most accustomed to, and would vo- 
luntarily adopt, if awake — is thence transmitted 
to the limbs. And it is hardly possible to con- 
ceive, that any series of impulses, transmitted 
along the so-called nerves of voluntary motion, 
should be so exact and uniform, as to produce the 
correct movements often witnessed in somnam- 
bulists, without the aid of impressions communi- 
cated by the "nerves of sensation." The im- 
possibility of walking perfectly straight forwards 
with the eyes closed, even with volition, and the 



TO THE MIND. 



71 



senses of touch and of muscular exertion fully 
awake and active, seems to be a proof of this. 
But against this must be set the fact, if indeed it 
be really well authenticated, that somnambulists 
walk with Ji.red, though open, eyes ; and some- 
times, though not so frequently with the eyes 
closed. But whether the material process be 
simple, or as complicated as these facts would 
seem to show, it is evident that there is some 
material process necessary to sensation, and 
regulated by laws with which mere mind has 
nothing to do ; and we are not justified in con- 
cluding, from any observed phenomena, that 
the mind, as at present constituted, can under 
any circumstances dispense, as far as sensation 
is concerned, with material aid. 

It may also be fairly urged, that the sensations 
of the brutes are similar to our own ; that they 
have the same sort of corporeal apparatus for 
feeling, and a mental consciousness as perfect as 
ours. Yet no one ever supposed that the brutes 
must be immortal, because they can feel. Dr. 
Butler has stigmatised this mode of argument, 
which has been frequently used in these pages 
and in recent works, as invidious and weak : but 
it is an appeal to the common sense of mankind ; 
and affords a presumption, that all solid proof 
of man's immortality rests not on physical pheno- 
mena ; — but is derived either from divine autho- 
rity, or from moral considerations. 



72 



CHAPTER V. 

UTILITY OF THE BODY IN MENTAL PROCESSES. 

THIS line of argument might if it were neces- 
sary be carried much further. It might be 
shown that every operation of the memory, and 
every other mental process, and they are exceed- 
ingly numerous, which depends upon " the asso- 
ciation of ideas" — which is in fact only a peculiar 
form or forms of the faculty of memory — requires 
the aid of the very same material organs of sen- 
sation and volition as enable a man, nay even an 
insect, to perceive and avoid a blow. 

In performing a process of moral judgment, 
we do indeed exert, with the aid of certain organs 
situated in the brain, a faculty immeasurably 
transcending, in the dignity of its functions, any 
possessed by the inferior creatures ; but the 
actions or emotions or motives which we contem- 
plate, and which are the subjects upon which that 
moral judgment is exercised are more or less 
abstract ideas or notions, ultimately derived, by 
changes and processes which it would require 
volumes even imperfectly to explain, from objects 
of sense. Now there are many physical facts 
which appear to render it certain, that the same 
material aids are requisite for the recollection, as 
for the first perception, of objects of sense. 



UTILITY OF THE BODY, ETC. 



73 



For if the impressions produced on the mind 
by those objects of sense which are present be 
extremely feeble in comparison with the vivid 
recollections of the past, the latter will sometimes 
become visible not only to the " minds eye," but 
to the eye of the body. If the mind be altogether 
withdrawn, by sleep, from the immediate influ- 
ence of sensible things, past recollections, confus- 
edly mingled together, often impress the mind 
with the force of realities. Now it is most worthy 
of remark, that they thus impress the mind, rather 
by their close resemblance to the images which 
have been the subjects of consciousness when we 
are awake, than by their equalling these latter 
images in intensity. For in fact the images that 
are seen by the sleeping eye are extremely faint 
and feeble. No sooner do we wake, than the 
visions are effaced; unless they have produced 
some strong bodily emotions, which like the 
waves of the ocean, cannot at once subside into 
a calm, after they have been strongly excited. 
Since, then, things recollected, and things per- 
ceived, differ rather in degree than in kind ; it 
would be manifestly inconsistent with the general 
economy of nature, that two distinct sets of cor- 
poreal apparatus should be provided, as means 
of rendering them subjects of mental conscious- 
ness. 

That some corporeal apparatus is in every case 
necessary, has already been sufficiently proved. 
It is highly probable, also, from analogy, that 
the organs of volition perform a similar part in 



74 



XJTILITY OF THE BODY 



aiding the formation of abstract ideas, to that 
which is subserved by the organs of sensation : 
that in forming even the general conception of 
any action as of a thing which we might our- 
selves perform, if we would, the mind is aided 
by a material mechanism, and especially by the 
nerves of volition. 

That these are in some instances very strongly 
excited, by the mere thought of performing an 
action, is shown, in a general and striking 
manner, by the common habit of gesticulation 
while speaking, and by the strong propensity of 
the speaker to enact himself the parts of the 
actors he describes ; and this not merely for the 
sake of conveying clearer ideas to his auditors, 
but to gratify a natural impulse. An extremely 
curious fact is recorded, by a popular and most 
philosophical writer,* which seems to confirm 
this view : and which does not stand quite alone. 
A somnambulist, who possessed the extraordinary 
habit of repeating, during sleep, every conver- 
sation, and even every word which she had 
spoken during the course of the previous day, 
would often rise from her bed at night, and 
employ herself in her ordinary occupations. 
" Her occupations," it is stated, " were ob- 
served to have a relation to her engagements 
during the day, being either a repetition of some 



* By Dr. John Abercrombie, on the Intellectual Powers. 
Page 302. 4th edit. 



IN MENTAL PROCESSES. 



75 



thing she had done, or the accomplishment of 
what she had intended to do, but had been pre- 
vented from performing." In this remarkable 
instance it appears that an impression made on 
the nerves of volition by the mere intention to 
act, occasioned the accomplishment of the action 
intended, many hours after the impression was 
made, and without any attendant consciousness. 
There appears to be some analogy between this 
remarkable case, and others of a more evidently 
material, or rather animal, nature. It is well 
known that fever, sometimes of a very malignant 
character, will attack persons who have recently 
removed from an unhealthy to a salubrious cli- 
mate : a pernicious impression having been made 
upon the constitution, which was in some way 
incapable of producing its full effect until the 
bodily vigour was increased. 



CHAPTER VI. 

ON the argument from the indivisibility 

OF MIND. 

AN endeavour has frequently been made, to 
vindicate the natural immortality of man, 
on the ground of the simplicity, and indivisibility, 
of the thinking principle. " All presumption of 
death's being the destruction of living beings," 



76 



ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 



says Dr. Butler, " must go upon the supposition 
that they are compounded, and so discerptible. 
But since consciousness is a single and indivisible 
power, it should seem that the subject in which it 
resides should be so too." And in this he has 
been followed by one of the chief mental philoso- 
phers of Scotland, who observes that " if matter 
be not all, or rather if matter have nothing in 
common with thought, the decay of matter can- 
not be considered as indicative of the decay of 
mind, unless some other reason can be shown 
for the mental dissolution, than the mere external 
decay :" and that on the proof of the " indivisi- 
bility of the sentient principle" " the chief force 
of this argument" for the soul's immortality 
" seems to depend." The same opinion had been 
long before entertained by philosophers. Cicero 
says that the mind is " simple, that it cannot be 
divided ; and therefore cannot perish." * 

In thus contending for the soul's immortality 
from its oneness of nature, and consequent insus- 
ceptibility of decay and dissolution, both the 
ancient and the modern writers have overlooked, 
with a singular precipitancy, the fact, which 
every materialist as well as immaterialist must 
admit, that death and the dissolution of the body 
are not equivalent terms. Every one in the least 
acquainted with human physiology is aware, that 
the matter of which our bodies is composed, is 



* Quaestiones Tusculanse. Lib. I. 



THE INDIVISIBILITY OF MIND. 



77 



preserved in its actual state by a certain mys- 
terious principle of animal life, one of the ef- 
fects of which, in suspending or reversing the 
ordinary chemical laws of matter, is perfectly 
well known, though the nature of the principle 
is utterly incomprehensible. When this animal 
life has ceased, the chemical actions commence, 
and decay ensues. Death, and dissolution stand 
in the relation of cause and effect.* Every part 
of a living organized body, even of a plant no 
less than of an animal, is pervaded by a certain 
corporeal vitality : and in every case the decay 
of the body is the effect of the loss of this vitality. 
Whatever effect the death of the body produces 
on the incorporeal part, or more properly speak- 
ing, on the sentient principle, f whether it be 
an enlargement, or a suspension, of its activity, 



* It is scarcely worth while to remark, that in cases of death 
from mortification, a partial dissolution may be said to be the 
cause of death. There are several instances of sudden, even of 
instantaneous death on record, in which the most careful inves- 
tigations of scientific men could detect no alteration whatever, 
either mechanical or chemical, in the corporeal structure, ex- 
cepting such as are well known to be consequences, not causes, 
of the loss of the vital principle. 

\ In the original language, " sentire" signifies both to think, 
and to feel — and has accordingly given rise to two words of very 
different meaning, sentiment, and sensation. — The expression 
sentient has been used in the above pages in both senses, with 
an unavoidable generality. The different writers who have 
been quoted have employed it in different senses, and in referring 
• to their observations it has been always employed in the sense 
of the quotations. 



78 



ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 



must be produced at once, and before decay has 
begun. Whether then this sentient principle be 
simple or compounded, the decay of the matter 
of which the body is composed cannot affect it : 
for by death the connexion between them is 
destroyed; and after death, whether the body 
decay or not, the mind is beyond its reach. 

It might, however, still be questioned (though 
the whole inquiry is most idle and fruitless), whe- 
ther there may not be, perhaps, " some other 
reason for the mental dissolution, than the mere 
external decay :" whether the same cause, which 
in a manner perfectly unaccountable takes away 
the vitality of the body, and so leaves it subject 
to dissolution, may not at the same time impair 
the soul, if it be a compounded thing, and expose 
it also to dissolution ? To this the previous ob- 
servations afford a complete answer. The body 
may be killed in an instant, and without even a 
partial dissolution ; and if the mind be, as it were, 
wounded through the body, it must receive an 
injury like that which the principle of animal 
life suffers, — an instantaneous destruction, or 
complete suspension of activity. Whether " con- 
sciousness," and the "living beings which are 
the subjects of consciousness," to use the expres- 
sions of Dr. Butler, be " discerptible" or not, 
their destruction, if effected by death at all, must 
be effected in a moment, and must take place 
previously to, and not by or in consequence of 
any decomposition. As it is perfectly conceivable 
that corporeal death should take place, without 



THE INDIVISIBILITY OF MIND. 79 

any consequent corporeal dissolution, the possi- 
bility of death's taking place cannot depend on 
the possibility of dissolution. 

In the same way a death of the mind may 
take place either without, or with, a consequent 
separation of parts, of the mental substance. We 
should recollect that the terms divisible and 
indivisible are borrowed from language that we 
apply to matter ; and cannot with equal pro- 
priety apply to that which is immaterial. This 
has evidently been overlooked by Lord Broug- 
ham, where in his Discourse on Natural Theo- 
logy* he observes, that " the strongest of all the 
arguments both for the separate existence of the 
mind, and its surviving the body," is not the less 
cogent " though the change undergone by the 
body be admitted to be incomplete, and though 
some small portion of its harder parts continued 
with us through life." (In fact the mental 
energies are suspended before any dissolution 
begins). " Probably no person at the age of 
twenty," he observes, " has one single particle 
in any part of his body which he had at ten, and 
still less does any portion of the body he was 
born with continue to exist in or with him. Yet 
the mind continues one and the same, 6 without 
change or shadow of turning.' None of its parts 
can be resolved, for it is one and single ; and it 
remains unchanged by the changes of the body." 



* Page 121. 4th edit. 



80 



ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 



. . . "It follows then that the existence of the 
mind depends not in the least degree upon the 
existence of the body." ..." The facts referred 
to prove that after the body's death, that is, after 
the chronic dissolution which the body undergoes 
during life, the mind continues to exist as before. 
Here then we have that proof so much deside- 
rated — the existence of the soul after the dissolu- 
tion of the bodily frame with which it was con- 
nected. The two cases cannot, in any sound- 
ness of reasoning, be distinguished ; and this 
argument therefore, one of pure induction, de- 
rived partly from physical science through the 
evidence of our senses, partly from psychological 
science by the testimony of our consciousness, 
appears to prove the possible Immortality of the 
Soul almost as rigorously as if 6 one were to rise 
from the dead.'" 

Now if this argument proves the immortality 
of the soul, it proves also the immortality of every 
thing belonging to the body, that is not material ; 
the immortality for instance, of the seventh sense,* 
(if Lord Brougham and Dr. Thomas Brown are 
both correct) of heat and cold. For since their 
sensations continue precisely the same ; or at 
least alter far less than the mind alters, in the 
progress from youth to maturity and from matu- 



* Dr. Brown says that we measure the degree of muscular 
effort exerted on any occasion not by the sense of touch, but by 
a sixth sense : and Lord Brougham is of opinion that heat and* 
cold are rendered perceptible by a seventh. 



THE INDIVISIBILITY OF MIND. 81 

rity to old age, unaffected by the " chronic dis- 
solution of the body during life ;" (or, if they are 
at all affected by it, becoming most keen and 
delicate, when that dissolution is most rapid) ; 
since they exist after the dissolution of the bodily 
form with which they were connected } they stand 
in just the same predicament as the soul. Cicero, 
in his ignorance of optics, believed the eye to be 
an obstruction, blocking up the opening between 
the internal soul and external objects : but since 
the true functions of the ball of sight have been 
understood, no one has supposed, that we shall 
be able hereafter to see without eyes ; unless, 
for reasons with which the present argument has 
nothing to do, the Deity should think fit to 
confer new powers upon man. 

There is not a shadow of reason for supposing 
that the sensations produced by heat and cold, 
or by contact, in the body of man, differ at all 
from the sensations produced by the same causes 
in the bodies of the inferior animals, even of those 
lowest in the scale of creation. The polypus 
contracts its slender tentacles when they are 
touched, and extends them to seize marine insects 
that come within its reach, — it has sensation and 
voluntary motion, consciousness and will.* Our 



* It would be to no purpose to argue that consciousness and 
will are merely peculiar states, or attributes, of the unchangeable 
soul. If consciousness does not of necessity remain, nothing 
remains but a name : or at the utmost a mere mental conception, 
having no substantive reality. 

G 



82 



ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 



evidence for this is exactly the same as that on 
which we rely without the slightest doubt, in 
inferring that any human individuals, excepting 
ourselves, possess consciousness and will. And 
if the chronic dissolution of the human body 
furnishes an argument for the Immortality of the 
Soul, much more does the continuance of con- 
sciousness in the body of the polypus, under a 
far more severe trial than a chronic dissolution 
can expose the human soul to, argue an immor- 
tality of the " life," or " soul," or " mind," or 
whatever it is called, of that wonderful animal. 
" The substance of these creatures is so instinct 
with life,* that nothing appears able to destroy 
it — a circumstance perhaps arising from the 
nervous molecules of which it seems almost to 
consist.f If divided transversely, each segment 
will become a distinct animal, send forth tentacles 
round its upper aperture, and close the lower : 
if it is divided longitudinally each half will form 
a separate tube in an hour, and begin to ply its 
tentacles in a day : even if divided into longitu- 
dinal strips, instead of the sides turning in, as in 
the former case, each strip becomes inflated, and 
a tube is formed within it : and what is still more 
wonderful and seems next to a miracle, these 
animals may be turned inside out, like the finger 



* Kirby's Bridge water Treatise. Vol. I. page 172. 

f In the opinion of this writer, then, life, including the 
powers of sensation and motion, is not a purely immaterial 
thing. 



THE IXDIVISIBILITY OF MIXD. 



83 



of a glove, without destroying either their vitality, 
or their power of producing germes, and of catch- 
ing and digesting their food." 

This extraordinary vitality is indeed marvel- 
lous in itself; but the argument we have been 
considering would make it more wonderful still. 
One animal, as it appears, can be multiplied into 
three or even four animals, one life into three or 
four lives. The consciousness and will of the 
polypus do not perish, even by a violent sever- 
ance ; but they are on the contrary multiplied. 
The consciousness and will of the human indivi- 
dual are during life always united to a body, but 
not always to the same body ; or more properly, 
to the same identical component particles : and 
it is thence inferred that they are quite indepen- 
dent of body, and would exist just as well if in 
no way connected with, or belonging to, any 
body at all. The consciousness and will of the 
polypus survive a more complete destruction. 
For let the upper half of the animal be cut off 
and crushed to pieces : then the consciousness 
resides just as perfectly as before in the lower 
half ; and after a short time a new upper half is 
formed. Let then the lower half be cut off and 
destroyed : the consciousness and will are then 
completely removed to a new set of particles, in 
a much shorter time than in the case of man, 
and by a much more violent and unnatural pro- 
cess. We therefore are to conclude that the 
consciousness and will of the polypus are quite 
independent of body, — and therefore immortal ! 



84 



ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 



and that, by a process of division with a knife, 
three or four immortals may be made out of one ! 

The remarkable qualities of the polypus no 
less clearly refute the doctrine, that conscious- 
ness, being one and indivisible, is therefore not 
affected by the dissolution of the body. For the 
consciousness that resided in the body of one 
polypus, if it cannot be divided, must, of mathe- 
matical necessity, be multiplied, when we find it 
residing in the bodies of three separate polypi ; 
and has therefore at least as good a title to be 
considered independent and self-existing (capable 
as it is, on this hypothesis, of increase but not 
of decrease), as human consciousness can be. 
The conclusion from the principles of Lord 
Brougham is evident enough, — not only that the 
polypus has an immortal part ; but that three 
immortals can, by a mechanical process, be made 
out of one ! But since this is extravagant, does it 
not follow, that the possession of powers of sen- 
sation and voluntary motion, of consciousness 
and will, and of something altogether immate- 
rial,* of something that survives, sometimes a 



* Not that consciousness and will themselves are altogether 
immaterial, — they result from the union of mind and matter, at 
least in man and animals — but that they imply the existence of 
some power, or energy or faculty, which is not material. Yet 
this power is not necessarily permanent. The force of gravita- 
tion is not material. It seems to result directly from the will 
of the Supreme, or of some Being to whom He has delegated 
the task. Matter, as far as we know, could exist if gravitation 



THE INDIVISIBILITY OF MIND. 



85 



violent severance of the parts of the body, some- 
times a more gradual but more complete dissolu- 
tion of particles, does not prove the existence of 
any thing entirely or at all independent of mat- 
ter, and which survives bodily decay ? * 

Except for the purpose of giving an illustration, 
which should be unencumbered with the myste- 
ries and difficulties, that at almost every point 
surround the nature of humanity, there was no 
need to refer to any inferior animal, in order to 
show that consciousness can be increased, (it 



were not. But where were gravitation, if matter were annihi- 
lated ? and the destruction of body may be to mind, what that 
of matter is to gravitation. 

* There is only one hypothesis, and that of a very obscure 
and a metaphysical character, on which the analogy between 
man and the inferior animals, in respect of the common nature 
of their consciousness, can be got over. It has been supposed 
that man is the only creature capable of such a consciousness as 
to be able to speak or to think what is expressed by the word 
" I." That he has some (not clearly comprehensible !) notion 
of his separate existence and individuality : — perhaps what has 
been called in the text a " consciousness of consciousness." This 
may possibly be true : but if this is all that survives the disso- 
lution of the body, of what value is it ? There is a certain story 
of a little dog, who having been ill used by another, went away 
and fetched a powerful friend of his own species, who duly 
punished the aggressor. Had not this animal evidently a notion 
that he had received a personal injury ? a clear idea of his own 
individuality. Excepting the faculty of veneration, and the 
power of voluntary attention to past ideas, (for most animals 
certainly revive past ideas involuntarily, in dreams) there is 
scarcely any, if any, faculty of the human mind, in which the 
elephant and the dog do not participate. 



86 



ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 



matters nothing whether we call it) by division 
or by multiplication. Every man born alive into 
the world, brings with him into it a share of the 
consciousness and will that belonged to others ; 
which constitute in him a life as separate and 
complete as that of each of these polypi made out 
of one. As truly and as literally as the blood 
of his parents flows in his veins, does he partake 
of the same consciousness and will, the same 
(ppovYipa, o-ocpxog, with them. There is absolutely 
nothing about him independent and self-existing, 
which he does not owe to his birth, and to his 
body, and to the blood " which is the life thereof." 
Generation produces all the life he has ; and that 
life therefore, by all analogies, is a mortal life ; and 
he must be " born again" before he " has ever- 
lasting life." Such is the doctrine of nature and 
of reason, no less than of Scripture.* Born into 
the world a mere animal, and far inferior to many 
other animals, at their birth ; man, as he ad- 
vances towards maturity, unfolds powers noble 
indeed, and immeasurably above those of the 
brutes, but which, by their resemblance to those 
of the beings whence he has sprung, clearly mark 
his parentage, and show that his highest nature 
is owing to no originally separate breath of life 
breathed into his nostrils, but that all comes, by 
corporeal descent, by material processes, from 
the first parents of mankind ; and that he owes 



* See Appendix. 



THE INDIVISIBILITY OF MIND. 



87 



to these processes every part of his separate being, 
separate consciousness, and separate will, just 
as the three polypi, made out of one, owe their 
separate existence to the strokes of a knife. 

Nothing contributes more to false notions on 
this subject, than the opinions so commonly en- 
tertained of the intrinsic dignity of all that is not 
material. It is indeed " derogatory to the dig- 
nity of man, to acknowledge a brotherhood of 
mind, such as shall include the polypus, the sea- 
jelly, and the animalcule of a stagnant pool. But 
science knows of no aversions, and must hold on 
its way, through evil report and good report. 
Truth, in the end, will not fail to justify itself, in 
all its consequences and relations." * 

The word " mind" is too often employed as if 
it were synonymous with " the mind," or " the 
human mind ;" and all the noblest and loftiest 
attributes of the human mind, attributes which 
seem to some almost to demand an immortality 
by right of their nature, have been transferred 
to mind in the abstract, and have conferred upon 
it a false dignity. But, if all that is not matter, 
nor any form, modification, or quality of matter, 
is therefore mind, it must comprehend all that 
is meant by the words " living principle," " or 
life," no less than the energies of a Newton or a 



* Physical Theory, p. 317. 



88 



ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 



Socrates. The power that causes a blade of 
grass to grow is not material. If by matter is 
intended that which is inert, and insensate, and 
all that is not matter is mind, then a polypus, or 
a sea-weed, are as truly composed of mind and 
matter as are human beings. An oyster has 
sensation and voluntary motion ; it shares with 
mankind in the enjoyment of consciousness and 
will. Yet no one imagines that an oyster has 
any immortal part. What becomes of its voli- 
tions, its pleasures and pains, and its capacities 
for willing, or feeling, when it dies ? They are 
destroyed. What becomes of the " living prin- 
ciple" when an egg is boiled ? It is destroyed. 
We can hardly form any other supposition. Mr. 
Bakewell, indeed, in his " Evidence of a Future 
Life," maintains the indestructibility of the vital 
principle, whether in an egg, or any other living 
substance — plant, or brute, or man, on the ground 
of an analogy which is worth considering in this 
place, although it is not only very questionable 
at the best, but even if admitted, is totally inade- 
quate to support his conclusion, — that men have 
immortal souls. — Not only gross matter, he argues, 
is indestructible, — varying indeed in form and 
bulk, and exchanging one combination for ano- 
ther, yet never varying in total amount, but so also 
are the more subtile immaterial agents or prin- 
ciples of heat, light, electricity and the like. And 
on the ground of a supposed analogy he infers 
that the same is true of the vital principle in 
vegetables, and in the lower animals ; and even 



THE INDIVISIBILITY OF MIND. 



89 



with the still more inscrutable and mysterious 
essence of the human soul. Hence he concludes 
that man is an immortal being. 

Of the indestructibility of matter we have the 
most convincing proofs. And we have very 
strong reason to believe that, in addition to those 
properties of extension and impenetrability with- 
out which a particle cannot be conceived, matter 
has certain properties which, with the exception 
of gravitation, vary in the different kinds of 
matter, yet in each kind continue always un- 
changed, and invariably exhibit and exert them- 
selves in the same manner under similar circum- 
stances. Of this nature are the properties of the 
attraction of cohesion between bodies of different 
kinds, capillary attraction (if this be distinct), 
and chemical affinity. 

Now whether heat, light, and electricity be 
indestructible, as we suppose matter and its pro- 
perties to be, can only be inferred, either from 
some community of nature between them and 
what we have already decided to be material 
things, or secondly, from experiments by which 
we can measure the amount of the heat, electri- 
city, &c. at certain times and places — No experi- 
ments hitherto made would lead to the conclusion, 
that heat, and light, and electricity are material ; 
natural philosophers do indeed loosely term them 
" fluids," but they do not suppose that they 
occupy space. And we know almost with cer- 
tainty that they are destitute of weight. Neither 
are they properties of matter ; for these belong 



90 



ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 



to the several particles- or points of which matter 
consists, and are not transferable. It would 
therefore be most unphilosophical to assume that 
heat, and light, and electricity, are indestructible, 
simply because matter is so. 

We have, however, much ground for supposing 
that heat and electricity at least never vary in 
amount. We can measure them by their effects : 
and so discover that what is gained in one quarter 
is lost in another. This is well shown in Mr. 
Bakewell's work. And though heat and elec- 
tricity, to take the most favourable instances, 
may be for a time latent and imperceptible (un- 
like matter, the presence and amount of which 
within a given space, may always be ascertained 
by weighing it), yet they may be made to reap- 
pear again, and by their exhibiting effects equal 
in extent to those which they exhibited before 
their disappearance, we infer that nothing has 
been lost. 

We have next to consider whether any analogy 
would lead us to conclude that the vital principle, 
in vegetables for instance, is, like matter, and 
the immaterial agents heat and electricity, indis- 
tructible ; and always the same in total amount, 
though sometimes latent, and at other times 
active. Now, though it may perhaps seem para- 
doxical, we shall have a stronger argument from 
analogy here, than that which Mr. Bakewell has 
stated, if we can justly deny the force of his 
inference from analogy in the former case, — 
between matter and the immaterial agents heat, 



THE INDIVISIBILITY OF MIND. 91 

electricity, &c. For if both matter, and heat, 
&c. be indestructible and invariable in total 
amount, though they have not any common pro- 
perty besides, whence the indestructibility of the 
latter could be inferred from that of the former, 
we have the stronger reason to infer that inde- 
structibility is an universal property. If two 
kinds of things, so unlike each other, agree in 
this indestructibility, we might the more reason- 
ably conjecture that a third thing, the principle 
of vegetable life as we term it, is indestructible 
too, though it be, as it certainly is in many 
important respects, extremely unlike either of 
the others. 

Let us now bring this subtile principle of 
vegetable life to the test, not of experiment, which 
it baffles altogether, but of our experience of 
those changes which nature exhibits to us. We 
know of its existence, and we can measure its 
amount, solely by its effects. Like heat or 
electricity it may be latent. The seed may 
continue unchanged for years, showing no incli- 
nation to germinate ; but when placed in a 
favourable soil, with the degree of warmth and 
light, and moisture suited to its nature, it puts 
forth its root and its slender sprout ; and grows 
as vigorously as if it had been but recently 
dropped from the parent plant. But if sensible 
heat or electricity become latent, and is again 
actively developed, we find its activity exactly as 
great as before ; and for this very reason infer 
that the amount has been always the same. But 



92 



ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 



the plant growing from a single seed flowers, 
ripens its seeds, and dies. The seeds are col- 
lected, and for a long time kept dry. In each 
seed there is a latent vitality, exactly equal to 
that in the original single seed. — They are sown, 
— and twenty plants arise to supply the room of 
one. Measured then by its effects, when in an 
active state, and in no other way can we measure 
it, the vital principle in plants appears to be 
variable in amount. The vitality of a single 
seed is adequate to produce effects absolutely 
infinite, if infinite time and space could be given 
for the developement of its energy. One grain 
of corn is capable of producing in a few years, 
a hundred millions of similar grains, each of 
which has an equally wonderful power of mul- 
tiplying itself. As far as our observation can 
guide us, life produces life. Matter does not 
produce matter, nor heat produce heat. 

There are, however, some cases of action 
between the particles of inanimate matter, in 
which a resemblance may be fancied to the phe- 
nomena of life. Fermentation in one part of a 
mass will produce fermentation throughout. The 
ignition of a single chip of wood in a pile, or 
grain of gunpowder in a magazine, will cause 
the whole to burn or explode. And were there 
enough matter, this process would go on without 
cessation and without limit. But in all these 
cases, as every chemist knows, properties which 
were always inherent in every separate particle 
or point of matter are merely developed in a 



THE INDIVISIBILITY OF MIND. 



93 



new mode. Tendencies which had always ex- 
isted manifest themselves as soon as the impedi- 
ments are removed. It is as when the pulling 
down of a house causes the fall of others in the 
same row. They fall by their own weight, — by 
the attraction of the earth, — obeying the impulse 
of a force which had always existed, but which, 
by lending each other mutual support, they had 
before withstood. But the phenomena of vege- 
table life and growth and propagation cannot be 
thus explained. There is absolutely no corres- 
pondency between these phenomena, and those 
of fermentation and combustion — unless we adopt 
the preposterous supposition, that every particle 
of matter in the universe, which is capable of 
forming part of a living body, contains in itself 
that infinite variety of tendencies, which can 
make it adapt itself to every exigency of the 
living frame. We must suppose every particle — 
of carbon for instance — to be so instinct with life, 
that it shall need only to be awakened, as it were, 
by the contact of other living particles, to exhibit 
on the instant not only life, but the exact species 
of life, which belongs to the plant of which it 
forms a portion. The particles will thus be as 
it were, an army which manoeuvres without any 
general at the head; each individual soldier 
having intelligence enough to act his part with 
reference to all the rest ! But this is altogether 
incredible. The mysterious principle of life 
dwells, as far as we can see, not in the particles 
individually; but in the structure as a whole. 



94 



ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 



It is distributed to a certain extent ; so as to 
endure, in some instances, a division of the plant 
into two or more, — as when we cut off and plant 
a geranium shoot, — but yet has a certain unity 
in itself. It belongs to the body as a whole — not 
to the parts : and therefore we are bound to con- 
clude that it ceases to be, when the body ceases 
to be ; — unless we can discover some sign of its 
transference to other portions of matter. But no 
such sign appears. Vitality is not transferable. 
A body may be chilled, and nearly all its heat 
by the same process may be transferred to ano- 
ther ; but a body cannot be killed, and another 
thereby animated. But even if vitality were 
indestructible, it would by no means follow that 
the soul of each man is immortal. The analogy, 
if worth anything, would merely go to prove that 
on a man's death his soul returns again to that 
general stock of latent soul of which other souls 
are to be made. 

If the human soul be immortal, in the proper 
sense of the words, — that, is, if it exist as a dis- 
tinct independent energy, after a separation from 
the body, — then analogy would lead us to sup- 
pose that the portion of heat, for instance, which 
filled one body, did, after quitting that body, 
remain in a separate state, preserving its indivi- 
duality for ever : that when an oak tree died, the 
life that animated it continued undestroyed, — 
the immortal ghost of an oak tree ! But all this 
is absurd. The life of the tree, — and in like 
manner the life of every animal — every plant, 



THE INDIVISIBILITY OF MIND. 



95 



seed, egg, as we have said, is destroyed. We 
can form no other supposition. In the case of 
a plant, perhaps, a different answer might he 
given. A plant, it might be said, has no soul of 
its own; the wonderful processes of its growth, 
the gradual formation and developement of leaf, 
and flower, and seed, argue mind indeed ; but 
the work is either that of the Supreme Ruler of 
the universe, or of some created intelligence to 
whom the task has been delegated.* But the 
sensation of an animal, of an oyster, cannot be 
supposed to belong to any other being, and must 
perish with the oyster. There is no shadow of 
reason for supposing that a " substance capable 
of sensation" remains at the death of the oyster. 
The oyster itself was that substance. 

If we are to consider the human mind as a 
" simple elementary substance," notwithstanding 
the endless variety of thought, the great diversity 
of faculties which it displays, the mind of an 
oyster, which has little beyond the faculty of 
sensation, may certainly be regarded as simple 
and elementary ; and, from its more evident 
simplicity, as less likely to undergo dissolution 
than the mind of man. But if the sensations of 
an oyster perish, " mind" in this its enlarged and 
general sense, is not indestructible, though it be 
a " single and indivisible 7 ' thing, If we suppose 



'* In this latter conjecture Dr. Reid, among- others, has in- 
dulged ; and adorned it with a fancy so rich, that one is reluc- 
tant to resign it for what is probably the sounder opinion. 



96 



ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 



that when an oyster perishes, a substance capa- 
ble of sensation remains, and is re-absorbed as 
it were into the Supreme Mind, or attached to 
some other being, (if the things are at all con- 
ceivable, seeing that we are all convinced that 
our minds belong of necessity to ourselves alone) 
such a transference or absorption would be, as 
far as the original owner is concerned, a virtual 
annihilation. — We do not find, then, in every 
organized body possessing life, an immortal 
essence. — If man lays claim to an immortality 
denied to the brutes, he must place it on some 
other ground, than on the nature of mind in 
general, as comprehending whatever is not matter, 
and as a simple immaterial substance, and there- 
fore incapable of dissolution. 

But the whole question respecting the liability 
of the sentient or thinking principle to destruc- 
tion or suspension of activity, admits of a prac- 
tical answer, far more satisfactory than could be 
gathered from any inquiry into the simplicity of 
its nature. In fact, every man has experienced 
many thousand times in the course of his life, — 
generally speaking once in every twenty-four hours 
— a loss — and whether it be called a suspension or 
a destruction is perfectly indifferent — a loss of 
consciousness. For it is not easy to say, what con- 
stitutes the difference between a suspension and a 
destruction. If, as Dr. Paley observes in the 
xxivth chapter of his Natural Theology, the idea 
of " spirituality comprises perception, thought, 



THE INDIVISIBILITY OF MIND. 



97 



and will" all of which are incompatible with 
inactivity, the terms would seem to be not only 
practically indifferent, but virtually equivalent. 
And if the torpor of sleep, which is merely a 
partial suspension of vital energy, attended by 
no dissolution, but on the contrary strengthening 
the body and preparing it for fresh activity, 
can thus paralyze all the mental functions, it is 
not too much to suppose that the torpor of death, 
which instantly and utterly destroys the vital 
energy, has an influence on the functions of the 
mind no less complete in extent, and the dura- 
tion of which— who shall determine, unaided by 
the express word of Him who made both body and 
soul ; or by the suggestions of that moral power, 
the feebler and fainter, but more general revela- 
tion which he has written within us ? 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE ARGUMENT FROM MAN'S PHYSICAL 
SUPERIORITY. 

IT comes within the scope of this first part of 
the work, though verging upon the second, to 
consider the question, whether the consummate 
wisdom and ingenuity shown in the physical 
constitution of man, — the fearful and wonderful 
manner in which he is made,— affords any pro- 
mise that those faculties will be perpetuated, for 

H 



98 



THE ARGUMENT FROM 



the sake of which contrivances so exquisite have 
been resorted to, and, if the expression is allowable, 
so great solicitude manifested, by their Creator. 
Now in the first place, admitting, as it is here 
taken for granted that all will admit, the Omni- 
potence of God, it is evident that these contri- 
vances and provisions are not essentially neces- 
sary to our being ; and moreover they who suppose 
a future state probable for physical reasons, do not 
expect the perpetuity of all, or most, of them, 
since this would of course be impossible without 
the resurrection of the body into a world nearly 
similar to the present We might have been 
made conscious of the forms and character of 
distant objects, without the refracting humours 
of the eye ; we might have been capable of 
wielding and moulding external matter without 
the exquisite mechanism of the hand and arm ; 
we might have measured out our span of three- 
score and ten years, unsupported by food, and 
with no complicated apparatus for converting it 
to the uses of the body ; — but the Creator has 
thought fit to constitute us otherwise. Though 
the reasons for this kind of procedure, this work- 
ing by means, which is adopted, it may be ob- 
served, no less in the moral and spiritual worlds, 
than throughout the material universe, are in a 
great measure inscrutable to us, it is at least 
evident that the contrivances have been re- 
sorted to, — since not for the sake of the end 
simply which could have been attained without 
them — partly for their own sake. And who shall 



man's physical superiority. 99 

say whether the means are not, in the contem- 
plation of the Deity, equally important with the 
ends ? or whether the importance of the ends 
does not depend on their being brought about by 
the means actually appointed ? 

" We are greatly ignorant," it has been finely 
observed by Bishop Butler, " how far things are 
considered by the Author of Nature under the 
single notion of means and ends ; so as that it 
may be said, this is merely an end, and that 
merely means, in his regard." At the instant of 
death the influence of all known means is utterly 
abolished ; and, if not our mental existence itself, 
yet all that was recognised as contributing to- 
wards it, as modifying or influencing it in any 
way, is gone. Who can say that the end, — some 
form of human mental existence, when physically 
considered, is in the eyes of the Author of Nature 
so much more important than the means, as to 
survive their abolition ? or that the end is equally 
important, by what means soever brought about ? 

Even granting that human existence is in itself, 
and without reference to the means by which it 
is to be supported, a higher end than any other, 
undisclosed by revelation,* that we know of ; yet 
the analogy of the physical universe shows, that 
high things and low are subject to the same law 
of corruption. The animal is more excellent than 



* I know not that revelation itself discloses to man any 
higher end in the Divine counsels, than human existence under 
certain conditions. But this is as much as we need know. 



100 



THE ARGUMENT FROM 



the vegetable world, yet is doomed even to a 
swifter decay. The surface of the earth bears 
traces and contains relics of sweeping convul- 
sions, which have divided eras, each distinguished 
by its own peculiar productions, and anterior to 
the existence of man : traces and relics which the 
natural philosopher, uncorrected by revelation, 
must contemplate not only as records of the past, 
but as prophecies of the future. The stars of 
heaven have themselves been changed ; and the 
fate of some, not the least brilliant among them, 
is a warning that the extinction even of our own 
sun is no impossible event. We are partial 
judges, and overrate our own importance. The 
exclamation of the Psalmist, " When I consider 
thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon 
and the stars which thou hast ordained ; what is 
man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of 
man that thou visitest him," is dictated by a 
juster estimate of the physical consequence of 
this creature.* " Thou has put all things [on the 
earth] under his feet," he continues : and the 



* The seemingly contrary injunction of our Saviour to his 
disciples, in Matt. vi. 25, to compare themselves with other and 
inferior objects of the Divine care, must not be opposed to this. 
For the disciples were taught, by Divine authority, to expect a 
high spiritual destiny. Revelation having previously made 
known to them how much better they were than many spar- 
rows, they were therefore to take no thought for the morrow, 
— because He who fed the fowls of the air and adorned the 
flowers of the field, would surely provide food and raiment, in 
no less ample supply, for his own chosen friends. 



man's physical superiority. 101 

source of the wonder is, the littleness of that being, 
on whom prerogatives so lofty are conferred. 

In the second place, however transcendent were 
the superiority of the human mind to all other 
terrestrial things, we should at most be justified 
only in expecting, not the perpetuity of each in- 
dividual life, but the perpetuity of the species to 
which it belongs. It might indeed be considered 
incredible that man should be altogether destroyed, 
that he should entirely disappear from a world 
which has been prepared, with marvellous skill 
and care, chiefly, though not exclusively, for his 
use and gratification ; but with the perpetuity of 
the race, it would seem, creative Intelligence 
would be satisfied. The ancient Greeks enter- 
tained and propagated the fanciful notion, that 
the souls of the departed endured, rather than 
enjoyed, a sort of shadowy existence, a mere 
mockery of real life, in a world which, like the 
visions seen in dreams, presented the semblance, 
without the substance, of real things : and that 
they were perpetually afflicted with longings to 
return to that form of being from which they had 
been exiled. Unless creative Intelligence should 
think fit, for certain reasons which it is not within 
the province of natural philosophy to suggest, to 
depart entirely from the mode of procedure which, 
so far as we know, is universally adopted, and 
should create for the spirits of the dead a new 
world, and a new kind of corporeity ; (a suppo- 



102 



THE ARGUMENT FROM 



sition which it would be most extravagant thus 
arbitrarily to assume, with no moral or religious 
considerations in its support ; ) their condition, 
whether more or less desolate than that pictured 
by the fertile imaginations of Greece, would cer- 
tainly be inferior in dignity to that of a race en- 
joying an existence no less excellent, through the 
instrumentality of means beautiful, and, as we 
have reason to believe, desirable to an Omnipo- 
tent Creator, who can work by what means soever 
he will.* 

Again, though man, even when considered 
merely in a physical point of view, is plainly at 
the head of creation, and though all things, even 
as the green herb, are given into his hand, yet 
contrivances and adaptations nearly as exquisite, 
and preparations hardly less ample, have been 
made for the well-being of many other species of 
creatures ; as if they were objects of their Crea- 
tor's solicitude in nearly the same degree as man 
himself. Gifted as these creatures are with facul- 
ties, for all of which the present world affords a 
full and appropriate gratification, there is not a 
shadow of reason, — even putting out of sight the 
Scriptural declaration of their mortality, — for 
supposing that they will enjoy any other than a 
terrestrial existence. Neither then can the Divine 



* " I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise 
up children unto Abraham." 



man's physical superiority. 



103 



provisions for the temporal welfare of man afford 
him ground for expecting immortality.* 

The relative importance of what we term means 
and ends becomes more and more apparent, as 
we successively contemplate the lower and lower 
grades of creation. The faculties of animals, and 
their capacities of enjoyment, appear to decrease 
in a much more rapid ratio than the skill and 
care displayed in the provisions for their welfare. 
It is certain that if mere animal enjoyment, of 
various kinds and degrees, were the sole end of 
the animal creation, that end could be attained, 
without the diversity of structures, and of other 
contrivances which we find actually to prevail. 
To choose one instance out of millions — no rea- 
son whatever can be assigned, why among the 
birds that frequent marshes, one should differ 



* The present world affords &full gratification to the species, 
but not to each individual of the species, of inferior animals. No 
one expects that the animals, who have been, in a certain sense, 
prematurely cut off, will find compensation in another world. 
But man is a creature capable of so much moral and intellectual 
improvement, that this world cannot provide a full and appro- 
priate gratification for the faculties of any one individual of the 
race. Yet the analogy between man and inferior animals will so 
far hold good, as that we ought not, from the insufficiency of 
this world, to expect another existence for all, but only for the 
most improved, of the human species. For that analogy shows, 
as some ancient philosophers have observed, that it is enough 
if some of a species come to perfection. 

Si ut sapientibus placet, non cum corpore extinguuntur magna 
animce. — Tacit. Agric. 



104 MAN'S PHYSICAL SUPERIORITY. 

from all the others in placing its nest between 
the stalks of three reeds drawn together for that 
purpose ; or why of all those that inhabit the 
trees of Great Britain, a few only should suspend 
their nest, instead of placing them upon the 
branches : or again, why of all the fowls that fly 
beneath the firmament of heaven, each species 
should be distinguished by the manner of its 
flight, unless means themselves, even in things 
apparently the most insignificant, are also ends 
and objects of the Creator's regard. The struc- 
ture of plants, the care with which their growth 
and propagation are prcvided for, the variety and 
beauty of their forms, in all of which particulars 
they far excel the lower species of the animal 
creation,* afford a conclusive proof, that the 
happiness of sensitive beings is not the sole end 
of contrivance and adaptation. For it cannot be 
supposed that the gratification of the human race 
was the sole purpose of all this beautiful variety 
of things. It is indeed calculated to excite plea- 
sure and wonder in the minds of all, gratitude 



* Many writers have, rather fancifully, represented all organ- 
ized things as forming parts of one great chain, commencing 
with the lowest form of vegetable existence, and terminating in 
man ; each intermediate species being linked with two others 
standing respectively higher and lower in the scale. But in fact 
the species which are to be reckoned as links are by no means 
intermediate in rank, between the classes which they join. The 
class of animals stands above the class of vegetables, but the 
links are at the bottom of each class. The cedar of Libanus 
must be ranked above a coralline, a polypus, or a sponge. 
Quadrupeds stand above birds ; but the ornithorhyncus is not 



CONCLUSION AND RECAPITULATION. 105 

and veneration in those whose thoughts ascend 
to the First Cause ; but it would be inconsistent 
with these very feelings so to limit the Creator's 
bounty and contract the dimensions of the scheme 
of nature ; — as unreasonable as to suppose that 
the stars were set in heaven, only to give light 
to our globe, or display to us the extent of crea- 
tive power. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CONCLUSION AND RECAPITULATION. 

IT was a very prevalent opinion among the 
ancient poets and philosophers of Greece 
that when the primaeval chaos, and the conflict of 
the "discordant rudiments of ill-joined things," 
as Ovid expresses it, were stopped by the Deity 
who fabricated the world, the four elements 
naturally and of their own accord* assumed 



superior to the rook. Many natural historians assert that both 
in the principal and in the subordinate divisions of organized 
beings the arrangement is not in a single but in a double line, 
each group being united with the rest of creation by two oppo- 
site links, which are themselves connected by a double chain of 
forms. 

* " Hanc Deus, et melior litem Natura diremit." Ovid. 
Metam. " Terrena et humida suopte nuta in terram et in mare 
ferantur ;" writes Cicero. Tusc. Qusest. Lib. I. 

According to Ovid the waters were not above the earth, but 
" occupied the furthest parts, and held in as with a band, the 



106 



CONCLUSION AND 



their proper positions : the earth standing lowest, 
with the waters upon and around it, the air being 
lighter, placing itself above them, while bodies of 
a fiery nature occupied the most elevated regions 
of all — thence called the " empyrean." And 
according to the Platonic doctrine, which Cicero 
seems to have preferred, the same thing happens 
at the dissolution of the human body, as took 
place on a more extensive scale at the creation, 
or rather formation of the world. " For just as 
the element of air," says Cicero, " is urged by its 
weight to the middle regions of the world, and 
that of fire is carried directly upwards towards 
the heavens, either because it is their nature to 
seek the highest places, or because lighter things 
are naturally repelled by heavier, so it is evident 
that souls, whether they consist of air, — that is, 
of breath, — or whether they consist of fire, must 
on their departure from the body, be carried 
aloft." And he afterwards says that the mind, 
or soul, "if it be," — an opinion to which he is far 
from objecting — " of the same materials of which 
all other things are made, and consists of 'inflamed 
air,' must of necessity occupy the heavenly re- 
gions." It will penetrate through that sky in 
which are clouds and rain and wind, and which 



solid orb of the earth." The general notion which the ancients 
had of the earth's figure was that of a flat circular surface 
(" orbis") surrounded by water : beyond which were regions of 
darkness, " where the day and night come to an end," where 
the " swaddling band of thick " darkness" began, and the shades 
of the departed dwelt. " Acheron" signifies " a remote place." 



RECAPITULATION. 



107 



is rendered gloomy and damp by exhalations 
j from the earth, and having reached a region of 
thin air and solar rays, congenial to its own 
nature, will cease to rise, and remain there." 

It is not, perhaps, the strangest part of this 
strange hypothesis, that it makes out the union 
i of mind and matter, or rather (since it supposes 
mind to be material), of- mind and body, to be a 
forced and unnatural commixture, like the com- 
mixture which had subsisted from all eternity 
(though how and why, few ancient philosophers 
cared to inquire) between the four elements. It 
was the separation of those elements that pro- 
duced order and harmony in the universe, on the 
earth as well as in the heavens ; and it might 
justly have been suspected that the separation of 
mind and body was not an event of the same 
character ; since the immediate consequence of 
the separation of the latter, as far as it could be 
traced, was disorganization and corruption, a 
conflict of moist and dry, which had before sub- 
sisted peaceably together, a return to the chaotic 
state. 

However, philosophers, having come to the 
conclusion, that the heavens and not the earth, 
was the natural abode of the human mind, as a 
thing composed of air and fire, followed up the 
hypothesis by speculations on the vast advantages 
which mind would enjoy, when thus released 
from "the chains of earth's immurement," and 
in possession of "its sempiternal heritage." We 
shall there, according to Cicero, be "free from 



108 



CONCLUSION AND 



all the cares and concerns of the world, and from 
all bodily passions, and devote ourselves entirely 
to the contemplation of things." The whole 
earth will then lay open to our view, and we 
shall be able to observe its position, and shape, 
and limits, and all its inhabited and desert tracts, 
gratifying to the utmost, and without labour or 
peril, that love of discovery which has urged 
men to adventure upon the treacherous ocean, 
and explore unknown and inhospitable shores, 
even as far as the straits, which to the Roman 
philosopher seemed to be on the confines of the 
globe, "where the hungry wave parts Europe 
from Libya." At present, " although the organs 
of sense, the openings from the body to the mind, 
are constructed with exquisite art, they are still 
blocked up in some degree by gross and earthly 
substances ; but then there will be nothing besides 
mind, no obstacle will prevent our perceiving 
the relations and nature of things." Yet this 
mind itself, according to the same philosopher, 
consists of a certain fiery air, and nothing more. 
It is still local, having only exchanged one place 
of abode for another, and is therefore still limited 
in dimensions : and though he represents it as 
in want of nothing, he declares in the same 
breath that it will be " fed and supported by the 
same things that support and feed the stars." 
Will it be able to penetrate again the clouds 
through which it has ascended, and see what is 
passing within the habitations of men, or in the 
depths of the ocean ? 



RECAPITULATION. 



109 



This fanciful hypothesis, this strange jumble 
of the properties of mind and matter, would not 
have been here noticed, if there were not much 
reason to think that modern philosophers also, 
notwithstanding the wonderful progress which 
has been made in physical philosophy, have fre- 
quently fallen into a very similar error with that 
of Plato and Pythagoras and Cicero, and indeed 
of the greater number of the wise men of anti- 
quity ; and that while the immateriality of the 
soul has been clearly demonstrated, and is now 
fully admitted on all hands, the nature of its con- 
nexion with the body has been overlooked, through 
a confusion between the physical nature and the 
moral relations of the human soul. As Cicero 
exalted a certain fiery air into a thinking sub- 
stance, possessing innate powers so extensive as 
actually to be impeded in the exercise of them 
by the organs of sense, so have later philosophers 
dignified the immaterial principle of life, pos- 
sessed by the lowest animals no less than man ; 
and given it an immortality which by right of 
its nature it has not. The mind of man can 
exercise powers and perform functions far above 
those of any other animal, but the permanency 
of the mind of man cannot be therefore greater 
than theirs. Physical durability depends not 

ON FUNCTIONS, BUT ON NATURE. A Watch does 

not of itself go for a longer time because it 
goes correctly ; nor run down the sooner because 
the hands are broken off, or the figures upon the 



110 



CONCLUSION AND 



dial erased. In the former case, the owner of 
the watch is more likely to wind it up, when the 
spring is nearly uncoiled, than in the latter case : 
but the machine itself has no power of perpetual 
motion. 

It was a conjecture of Aristotle that the soul 
of man consisted of " a kind of continuous and 
perpetual motion;' and constituted a sort of 
fifth power, altogether different from the four 
elements of which all other things were made. 
And though to call the soul a motion must convey 
an imperfect idea of it, yet this opinion seems 
not very far from the truth. It is common to 
speak of the " powers of the mind," as if beyond 
them were some substance, or essence, capable of 
exerting those powers ; but in fact all we know 
or can well hope to know of mind, in this life, is 
merely the existence of the powers. So we speak 
of the " qualities of matter," as if we knew of 
something besides and beyond those qualities, and 
which would exist independently of them. But 
if extension and impenetrability be taken away, 
there is absolutely nothing belonging to matter 
left which can become an object of our concep- 
tions. Nor is there any shadow of reason for 
supposing that any such hidden substance exists ; 
any groundwork as it were, upon which the 
qualities of matter are supported. It is demon- 
strable that matter may consist (so far as any 
properties of matter with which we are acquainted 
by our present senses are concerned), of nothing 
but bundles of mathematical points of attraction 



RECAPITULATION. 



Ill 



and repulsion ; of nothing, in a word, but forces :* 
which forces are upheld, as revelation assures us, 
by the word of the Divine Power. Mind also 
may be called " that which thinks and feels and 
can originate motion," or " a substance capable 
of thought and feeling, and of the origination of 
motion,'' a substance possessing certain faculties, 
energies, and powers. Yet all that we know to 
exist is merely the energies, and powers. Nor 
does it seem at all incorrect to call the mind an 
energy, or power ; something corresponding to 
the motion of Aristotle : supported, as we know 
from revelation, by One, in whom we live and 
move and have our being. We have strong 
reason to believe that two powers of the mind, 
of sensation, and of originating motion, cease alto- 
gether on death. And it has been too hastily 
concluded that the power of thought and reflec- 
tion remains because these seem to be nobler 
functions than the others which perish, and to 
be less dependent upon matter. 

In the preceding chapters it has been pointed 
out as highly probable, that during sleep, not 
only the powers of sensation, and voluntary mo- 
tion are suspended and cease, but that a complete 
suspension of all the mental powers ensues :— that 
dreams take place only during the state of im- 
perfect sleep ; commonly in the act of waking : 
and that the velocity of thought is not greater 



* See Appendix. 



112 



CONCLUSION AND 



during that partial lethargy of the body, than 
when the body is fully awakened. That more 
violent affections, such as a swoon, or insensibility 
from a blow or any severe bodily injury, suspend 
the highest as well as the lowest powers of the 
mind, and that death, which differs from these 
cases only in being a more severe bodily injury, 
has probably the same effect : and it has been 
further argued, that the common consent of 
mankind, that the brutes are mortal, does strongly 
confirm this view. 

But since an exception may be taken in the 
case of man, and it may be thought that his re- 
flecting powers are exempt from the general sus- 
pension, it has been further argued, in the second 
chapter, that the very highest of all human powers 
depend upon the brain for their activity : that not 
only does general disorder and disease of the brain 
produce mental disease and disorder, and excite- 
ment of the brain mental excitement ; but that the 
activity of particular parts of the brain is necessary 
to the activity of particular faculties of the mind ; 
so that precisely upon the same grounds as we 
believe men and animals cannot feel after death — 
because their nerves have no action, — should 
we also believe that men cannot reflect after 
death ; — because their brain has no action. And 
it has been proved by one very remarkable in- 
stance (in page 44), that a man may " suffer a 
complete death as far as regards his mental 
powers," merely in consequence of a pressure 
on the brain. Afterwards, in the third chapter 



RECAPITULATION. 



113 



has been considered the opinion, that the body 
is a mere clog upon the mind, a temporary prison 
in which it is immured. And this opinion has 
been met by a very similar line of argument to 
that previously adopted. The faculties of sen- 
sation and voluntary motion, although it be ad- 
mitted that the co-operation of an immaterial 
part is necessary, require nerves. And we find 
that the mind never does act, in this life, except 
with the co-operation of the brain. And surely 
this brain is not useless : but is given us because 
our minds are so constituted as to be unable to 
act without a brain. They may be able to act 
hereafter, without a brain ; if the Creator and 
Preserver of men should think fit so to alter their 
present nature, as to give them that capacity ; 
but are at present incapable of independent 
activity. 

In the fifth chapter has been considered the 
opinion, that the mind, being a single and indi- 
visible thing, cannot undergo any destruction, or 
detriment, or alteration, in consequence of the 
dissolution of the body : and it was remarked in 
the first place, that the dissolution of the body 
being not the same thing with death, but the 
effect of death, of the withdrawal of that in a 
great degree incomprehensible and mysterious 
principle of animal life, which suspended the 
ordinary chemical laws of matter, the dissolution 
of the body obviously could not be the cause of 
injury to the mind, whether mind were an indi- 
visible, or were a compounded, thing. In the 

i 



114 



CONCLUSION AND 



next place it was shown that the living and 
immaterial principle of a human being and of 
one of the lowest of animals was capable of the 
same division or multiplication (for it may be 
called either), of life and consciousness : and that 
we must either suppose that two strokes of a 
knife, cutting a polypus, can make three immortal 
creatures of one, or give up the argument from 
the independence of mind on body drawn from 
the chronic dissolution of the latter ; and deny 
altogether the indivisibility of consciousness. 

In the sixth chapter was considered the opinion 
that man must be immortal, drawn from the 
wonderful skill and care shown in his structure. 
And it was argued, that for all that we know, 
these contrivances may be, in themselves, as im- 
portant as the end — human existence and welfare ; 
and that the importance of the end may depend 
on its being effected by means of such contri- 
vances. Next, that, if human existence were 
itself, and without reference to the means, the 
highest of all ends, the analogy of inferior nature 
shows that even the greatest things are perish- 
able : and further, that if man be destined, through 
the excellence of his nature, for perpetuity, the 
species, not all the individuals of the species, will 
continue : while there are, moreover, considera- 
ble difficulties in the way of the supposition, that 
the species would attain a higher degree of per- 
fection in a disembodied state than in the present 
world. And finally, that nearly equal solicitude 
has been manifested by the Creator in providing 



RECAPITULATION". 



115 



for the welfare of the inferior creation ; and this, — 
notwithstanding that man is at the head of that 
creation, and is the sole creature capable of com- 
prehending and admiring the works of God, and 
of recognizing the Maker with gratitude and 
veneration, — not with a view, solely or chiefly, to 
the gratification of the human race. 

If all, or the greater part of the arguments 
which have been here employed, in proof of the 
dependence and connection of mind on organized 
matter, and on animal life, be correct, there 
arises, in the opinion of the writer, a very strong 
presumption that the death of the body will cause 
a cessation of all the activity of the mind, by way 
of natural consequence ; to continue for ever 
unless the Creator should interfere ; and restore, 
by a fresh exertion of His power, either the soul 
alone, or the soul and body together. 

The next Book will enter on the question of 
the probability of this restoration, as far as the 
future intentions of the Deity, with regard to 
man, can be collected from the present moral 
constitution and condition of the world and of its 
rational, or irrational inhabitants. 



BOOK II 



MORAL EVIDENCES OF A FUTURE LIFE. 

CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

TO search for proofs of man's immortality in 
the nature of his physical constitution is, 
indeed, to seek for the living among the dead. 
The word of God declares that man has forfeited 
the high privilege of life, his original birthright,* 
whereby he partook of an existence little inferior 
to that of the angels of heaven ; and has become 
a creature naturally subject to corruption, con- 
demned by an inevitable law, and by a change 
now inscrutable to us (though once it must have 
been well known, since it was experienced), 
sooner or later to return to the dust from whence 
he was taken : and no physical investigation of 
the structure of man, or of the nature of the 
living principle within him, can afford any solid 
reasons for believing, that the sentence, which 
was to render man perishable, has not taken full 
effect, f Man is indeed mentally superior to 

* His original birth-right, not as a creature of dust, but as 
the possessor of Eden. 

f An endeavour is made, in the next Book, to show that the 
curse of death, denounced upon Adam, takes full effect until 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



117 



the brutes, and endowed with a bodily frame 
which is far more perfect than theirs, though 
less commensurate with the desires of its occupier ; 
but in a large part of his compound nature he is 
evidently akin to them ; and possessed too of 
passions and instincts which are so intimately 
interwoven and blended with his highest faculties 
on the one hand, and those which are universally 
admitted to be merely animal on the other, that 
no line of separation can be drawn between these 
faculties, marking off any portion as not of the 
earth nor earthy, and entitling us to assert that 
some have a different essence from the rest, and 
will survive the general destruction, or at least 
complete suspension, which will certainly befall 
all animal powers. 

But we may avail ourselves of a further and 
better light, in the inquiry into these mysteries, 
than any which can be admitted in merely phy- 
sical researches ; the light of the moral faculties ; 
which are far superior to the intellectual, and 
incomprehensible by them ; less mechanical in 
their operations, less complex in their nature, 
and more spontaneous in their activity ; and 
which, as they appear to be more immediately 
derived from a celestial source than any other 
faculties which the Father of lights has conferred 
on man, seem peculiarly calculated to assist in 

the general resurrection : — the redemption of man, and victory 
of Christ over death not being- completed till then : nor having, 
before that day, any other counteracting, except in conferring a 
spiritual life on men, during their sojourn in this world. 



118 



MORAL EVIDENCES. 



the investigation of the more abstruse and mys- 
terious part of His designs : and may reveal to 
our hopes, though dimly and doubtfully at best, 
things beyond the reach of mere intellect ; but 
which revelation alone can fully disclose. When 
by the aid of these faculties, we discern, in part, 
the character and counsels of the Supreme Maker, 
and come to understand, in some degree, the 
true moral condition of man ; and his relations 
to God, not as a Maker only, but as a Moral 
Governor, who interferes with all events, in the 
history both of nations and of individuals ; and, 
notwithstanding the apparent abandonment of 
all the details of that history to the operation of 
blind natural causes, brings about in the end, 
through their instrumentality, great moral pur- 
poses of his own ; and when, rendered more con- 
fident by this addition to our knowledge, we 
attempt to decide for what ends this human race, 
seemingly so perishable, was called into existence, 
we are led to extend our views beyond this world, 
and the hope of immortality becomes no longer a 
baseless vision.* " Man we believe to be im- 
mortal," says the eloquent author of the " Phy- 
sical Theory of Another Life," " man we believe 
to be immortal, (revelation apart) not because his 
mind is separable from animal organization ; but 



* The line of argument here alluded to is followed out by 
Dr. Chalmers in his Bridgewater Treatise, in the Chapter — On 
the Capacities of the World for making a Virtuous Species 
Happy. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



119 



because his intellectual and moral constitution is 
such as to demand a future developement of his 
nature. Why should that which is immaterial 
be indestructible ? None can tell us ; and on the 
contrary we are free to suppose that there may 
be immaterial orders, enjoying their hour of 
existence, and then returning to nihility." 

In contemplating man as a moral being, we are 
raised, as it were, above the graves and charnel 
houses that furnished only proofs of his mortality ; 
we breathe a purer air, and command a wider 
prospect. Our concern is not now with the 
essential qualities of mind and matter, the con- 
nection of body and soul, the dependence of 
consciousness upon indivisibility, or with any of 
those properties of the human constitution which 
come within the province of physiology, and 
demand for their successful investigation an 
exercise of intellect alone. We are to contem- 
plate man no longer as an animal being, but as 
possessed of faculties which., however perishable 
in their nature, are in their functions so noble, as 
to separate him from the inferior creation by an 
impassable line. We may thus ultimately obtain, 
though not without many occasions of misgiving, 
more ample and encouraging views of the Divine 
economy, and see reason to think that man was 
created for purposes which cannot all meet their 
accomplishment in this world, and will find it 
in another ; and to conjecture that after death 
the Creator may again put forth His power, in 
order to restore the spirit that had returned to 



120 



MORAL EVIDENCES. 



him,* and rebuild the structure that could not 
preserve itself from decay. 

It has been beautifully argued by Dr. Paley, 
at the commencement of his admirable treatise 
on Natural Theology, that any one possessing a 
sufficient knowledge of mechanism, would be con- 
vinced on the examination of a watch, — even 
supposing that he accidentally met with that 
machine, for the first time, in crossing a barren 
and solitary heath, — that it was the work of in- 
telligence and contrivance. At this conclusion 
he would certainly arrive, even though he failed 
to discover the end fcr which the watch was 
made, — the measurement of time. It would be 
evident to him moreover that the watch, however 
skilfully put together, and however regular in its 
rate of movements at the time of his examining it, 
could not move for ever : that from the very 
principle of its construction, it must go down at 
last. And if he could obtain no knowledge of 
the maker, and it exceeded the skill of the me- 



* It is strange that any one should consider the predicted 
" return of the spirit (or life) to God who gave it," as an assur- 
ance and promise of immortality. As long as the breath of 
life remains in them, (for " the spirit" means no more) His 
creatures live ; when the Giver resumes it, they die. So in . 
Job, chap. iii. v. 34. " The spirit of God hath made me, and 
the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." And (chap, 
xxxv. v. 14.) " If God gather unto himself his spirit and his 
breath, all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again 
unto dust." The breath of life breathed into the nostrils of 
Adam was animal merely. For compare Genesis, chap. vii. 
v. 13. " All [animals] in whose nostrils was the breath of 
life, of all that was in the dry land, died." 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 121 

I chanicians of that generation to bring back the 

| main spring to its original position, he would 
not expect that the watch, having once stopped, 

| could ever go again. But if he saw the watch in 
the hands of the maker, and knew also that it 

! was formed for the mensuration of time, for a 
purpose that would continue to be desirable after 
the period had elapsed for which the watch, if 
left to itself, could maintain its motion, he would 
reasonably expect this maker to interfere, and 
by a fresh exertion of his skill and power restore 
the action of the machine. And thus, if man, 
though possessing in his physical constitution no 
principle of perpetual life, should nevertheless 
appear to be fitted for the fulfilment of moral 
purposes, which, from what we can learn, without 
revelation, concerning the character of the Su- 
preme Governor and the probable economy of 
the universe, will continue to be desirable after 
the allotted period of human life has expired, we 
may reasonably hope that our Maker will inter- 
fere, and grant a renewal of existence to his 
creatures.* The lamp of life is fed with fuel 



* The Creator made man " not prone and brute as other 
creatures," but " upright with front serene ;" — with eyes which 
he can raise to heaven in adoration, and hands which he can 
clasp in prayer. 

Os homini sublime dedit, ccelumque tueri 
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus : 
and hence, from this structure, framed as it were in reference 
to a higher world, may arise a moral presumption that death 
will not annihilate him, though the eye and hand of man, phy- 
sically considered, have no better title to immortality, than those 
of the monkey. 



122 



MORAL EVIDENCES. 



limited in quantity, and the flame cannot long 
maintain itself. Man may extinguish the flame, 
but to relume the lamp, or augment the supply of 
vital oil, exceeds his power. Whether its extinc- 
tion shall be for a moment only, or for all eternity, 
depends on the will of Him who formed the 
vessel according to his own pleasure, and lighted 
it for his own purposes. 

It is much to be apprehended that moralists, 
who have sought to prove the immortality of the 
soul, from the character of the Deity, and from 
the moral constitution and condition of man, and 
from his relation to his Maker, have often argued 
with much precipitancy and over-confidence. 
By the sure word of Revelation they have been 
instructed in, and made certain of those first 
truths or principles, from which the probability 
of man's immortality may be deduced. But it is 
obviously to no purpose to argue, with whatever 
logical precision, in favour of the reality of that 
future life which Revelation has disclosed, on 
principles which derive their only or their chief 
stability from that very Revelation. We must 
not in the first instance borrow our. notions of 
the Divine power, and justice, and goodness, and 
of man's responsibility and imperfections, and 
capacity of improvement, from the Bible, and 
then, having proved the probability of a future 
state of human existence upon the principles we 
have adopted, imagine that human reason has 
succeeded in establishing a fact, which the Bible 
expressly declares. It would be much better to 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 123 

adopt the conclusion at once, than to assume only 
! the premises on which we found it. 

The system of Natural Religion, as it is called 
in contradistinction to the Revealed, must be 
I supported entirely by moral reasonings, and de- 
! rive no aid whatever from the authority of Scrip- 
i ture, when employed to establish that authority. 

For Natural Religion may be employed either to 
| recommend and introduce the doctrines of Reve- 
lation, or to illustrate them when admitted. When 
it is employed for the latter purpose we may, 
undoubtedly, avail ourselves, to a certain extent, 
of a corrected Natural Religion ; but not so, 
when for the former purpose. That Natural 
Religion is capable of supporting itself, without 
any further assistance than that of the simplest 
and most obvious trains of moral reasoning, is 
sufficiently shown by the extensive prevalence of 
certain general notions of religion, among the 
heathen nations, and anterior to the Gospel 
Revelation.* By the moral philosophers of mo- 



* This may be, in some instances, the corruption of Reve- 
lation, truth gradually obscured. St. Paul's account of the 
heathen world is, that they " changed the glory of God into an 
image, &c." — that they " changed the truth of God into a lie." 
Granting man to have the capacity for inventing a faith de novo, 
to satisfy the natural cravings of religious feeling, it may be 
questioned whether there has been often such a state of things 
as to give occasion for the exercise of this inventive power. 
It would imply a blank and chasm in man's religious history 
incompatible with those very impulses of his nature which would 
lead him to fabricate a religion out of the materials which nature 
furnishes. The Israelites in the Wilderness were punished not 



124 



MORAL EVIDENCES. 



dern times many of these notions have been 
corrected, and brought into a nearer accordance 
with the facts disclosed by Revelation ; and the 
system of Natural Religion has been enlarged, 
and its doctrines propounded with confidence, 
as valuable auxiliaries to the cause of Divine 
truth. And in this task moralists have professed 
to avail themselves only of the light thrown upon 
the subject by the progress of philosophical dis- 
coveries, and of improvements in the mode of 
investigation. Scripture itself, in condemning the 
Heathen nations for their want of Natural Reli- 
gion, justifies the Christian philosopher in en- 
deavouring to carry out this system further than 
it was ever carried by the philosophers of anti- 
quity. " For the invisible things of Him from the 
creation of the world," writes St Paul, (Romans 
i. 20.) " are clearly seen, being understood by the 
things that are made, — even his eternal power and 
Godhead ; so that they, the Gentiles, are without 
excuse ; because that when they knew God, they 
glorified him not as God, neither were thankful ; 
but became vain in their imaginations, and their 
foolish heart was darkened." Yet, though the 
Gentiles did not avail themselves as they ought 
to have done of their knowledge of " the things 



for abandoning the worship of Jehovah, but for beginning this 
process of corruption by adding the superstition of the golden calf. 
Left to themselves, they would have become in time idolaters ; 
but their notion of religion itself — the superstructure of their 
errors would have been revealed truth. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 



125 



that are made," and that knowledge has been 
since enlarged, in various ways, by the contribu- 
tions of natural philosophers, it is impossible not 
to regard with some suspicion the arguments of 
men who, familiarised with all the leading truths 
of Christianity, attempt to demonstrate some of 
those truths without any dependance on its au- 
thority. 

We should remember also, that, from the na- 
ture of the case, the progress of Natural Religion 
is not commensurate with that of Natural Philo- 
sophy ; and that our enlarged and more accurate 
data give us but a small advantage over the Gen- 
tiles of the ancient world. He who can see no 
proof of benevolent adaptation in the varied cloth- 
ing of animals, — in the absence of teeth at the 
time of birth, — in the rapid propagation of those 
plants and animals which are fit for food, as com- 
pared with those which destroy life, — will not be 
converted to theism by any demonstration of 
mathematical accuracy in the works of bees, or 
in the marvellous balance of powers which secures 
the stability of the planetary system. 

If the immortality of man, or his existence in 
a state of consciousness for an indefinite period, 
after the dissolution of the body, does at all merit 
to be classed among the doctrines of natural 
religion, it is certainly one which depends upon 
the previous establishment of nearly all the others. 
Dr. Butler, in his Analogy, terms the immor- 



126 



MORAL EVIDENCES. 



tality of man a fundamental truth of Christianity. 
In regard to its importance it certainly is so ; but 
in its doctrinal, or its historical relation with 
other truths, it should rather be considered as 
final, and crowning, than fundamental. And it 
is important to bear in mind, that a very slight 
degree of uncertainty, attaching to each of the 
propositions which constitute the links of a chain 
of argument, will often not only weaken the con- 
clusion to be established, but even render it ac- 
tually improbable* To apply this observation, 
summarily, to the question before us ; — 

That God is a being of infinite power, — so 
that He cannot be thwarted or controlled in the 
performance of His will by any other being ; and 
of infinite goodness, — so that no absolute moral 
wrong can occur within His government ; and of 
perfect justice, — so that He will in no case clear 
the guilty ; and of perfect benevolence, — so that 
He will not suffer any unnecessary pain to exist ; 
and that man is responsible to God for his actions 
and his thoughts, and is a depraved and fallen 
creature, whose energies are perverted from their 
proper and original direction, and is nevertheless 
a being, whose moral and intellectual nature 
might, under favourable circumstances, develope 



* Let us suppose that the probability that the plague visits a 
certain city is as two to one : and the probability that it attacks 
any given individual there, as two to one : and the probability 
that the attack proves fatal, as two to one. Then, while the 
plague is yet at £P distance, the probability is more than two to 
one against the death of any particular citizen by that disease. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



127 



such excellence as would in this present world 
find an inadequate field for the exercise of its 
energies : — these are propositions, which, with 
several others of a similar character, require to 
be established by a consideration of the " things 
that are made," before the doctrine of man's im- 
mortality, or future existence beyond the grave, 
can be rendered morally probable. These things 
once ascertained, we may encourage the hope 
that in another world justice will overtake the 
guilty who on this earth have been triumphant, 
and, in conjunction with benevolence, will re- 
ward the virtuous, and give a full compensation 
to all who have suffered undeservedly ; and 
further, that man, whose better nature is in this 
world often overpowered, always depressed and 
degraded by the temptations and corruptions 
that beset him, will be placed in a situation 
adapted to call forth and perfect those energies 
in which a Being of perfect goodness can take 
delight. But the varied forms of evil, subsisting 
in the world which God has made, render many 
of these truths at least doubtful on a first view ; 
and yet, unless they are all ultimately established, 
or given a very high degree of probability, the 
doctrine that depends on them will become itself 
improbable. 

The moral philosopher, having once distinctly 
discerned in the creation, — as well he may, — 
traces, and abundant traces, of great power, and 
wisdom, and justice, and benevolence ; and within 
his own heart, — the heart at least of " the natural 



128 



MORAL EVIDENCES. 



man," much prevailing evil, and the seeds of 
much excellence, (if indeed they should not 
rather be esteemed the remnants of a former and 
forfeited perfection,) scruples not to carry out 
his conclusions to their furthest extent, and to 
argue upon them as ascertained ; disregarding, 
in that confidence in their truth which he has 
derived from other sources, those evident marks 
of evil and imperfection which abound in the 
world, and which tend to render them doubtful, 
and the immortality to be deduced from them 
improbable. We are all too ready to consider 
that as proved, which we well know to be true ; 
and to disregard the weakness of the premises 
when the establishment of the conclusion is neces- 
sary to our happiness. Whoever teaches man 
that he is an immortal being, supplies a want 
and gratifies a yearning desire which must ever 
be most keenly felt by the noblest and strongest 
minds ; and which being gratified, even heathens 
will disregard earthly joys, or " the sufferings of 
this present time," as "not worthy to be put in 
comparison." But although there can be Jittle 
doubt that some reasons for expecting another 
existence will be the fruit and reward of an ex- 
tended and impartial inquiry into the moral and 
intellectual constitution of man and the condition 
of the world around him, it is no less certain that 
on a more limited inquiry many phenomena ap- 
pear to be greatly at variance with Divine good- 
ness or power ; and are calculated to call forth 
the most gloomy apprehensions, lest the evils 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 129 

WHICH PREVAIL SHOULD HAVE THEIR ORIGIN IN 
THE MIND OF THE SUPREME RULER HIMSELF ; 

and the woes that encompass mortality should be 
altogether without a remedy. 

Nature has her dark as well as her bright side ; 
and it is the prerogative of the Christian, not of 
the mere moral philosopher, to discern truth most 
distinctly, while contemplating the latter only. 
Many of those joyous and ennobling emotions 
which a contemplation of the beauties of nature 
and the bounties of providence excites in the 
mind of a Christian, are such as the most ele- 
vated mind, uninstructed by revelation, and un- 
furnished with any key to the partial solution of 
the mystery of evil, could not reasonably enter- 
tain : unless indeed upon the principle (which 
the followers of Epicurus only would be ready to 
adopt and justify) that it is man's best and 
soundest philosophy to turn from the contempla- 
tion of all evils which he is unable to remove, 
and all difficulties which he cannot solve. 

In the endeavour to determine how far the 
hopes or confident expectation of immortality 
should reasonably be diminished by a considera- 
tion of the more obscure and gloomy parts of the 
moral scene, a valuable test by which to try the 
arguments of Christian philosophers, is afforded 
by the recorded opinions of heathens, — and not 
of the reflecting few only, but of the reckless 
multitude also, — on the subject of Natural Reli- 
gion. For there was nothing to create any pre- 
judice (if we may so speak), in the minds of the 

K 



130 



INTRODUCTORY. 



heathen, in favour of Natural Religion, except 
the uncertain hints which they derived from oral 
and unauthoritative tradition : and their voice 
may therefore justly be esteemed the true voice 
of fallen and unaided man. The Christian phi- 
losopher approaches the subject with his eyes 
purged and cleared by the euphrasy and rue of 
the Gospel. 

The opinions entertained by the mass of the 
common people of pagan antiquity, whether 
among the more civilized or the semi-barbarous 
nations, are fully as important as those of the 
philosophers : for as we ought to call in question 
the correctness of our conclusions, with a critical 
jealousy, in every particular instance in which 
they go beyond those of heathen philosophers, 
so should we question the tenets of the philoso- 
phers themselves, when their truth was admitted 
and believed only by an inconsiderable train of 
disciples. " He only discovers, who proves ;" 
and notwithstanding the inveterate blindness of 
men, — their love of darkness rather than light, — 
the number of its advocates is in speculative 
matters at least, some test of the truth of an 
opinion. And the belief in man's immortality, 
had it been far more firmly established among 
the heathen nations than it has proved to be, 
would still have been a matter of speculation, not 
of practice. Even in this country, where the 
doctrine is established on a foundation that can 
never be moved, and enforced by threats and 
promises of a most appalling or a most alluring 



SENTIMENTS OF THE HEATHEN. 



131 



character, there are many professed believers to 
whom it is little more than matter of specula- 
tion. 

To a consideration of the opinions of the hea- 
then, therefore, we now proceed. 



CHAPTER II. 

SENTIMENTS OF THE HEATHEN ON NATURAL 
RELIGION. 

IT is very remarkable, that many of those facts 
and phenomena which have suggested the 
lowest species of Natural Religion — if the super- 
stitions which prevail among men who have re- 
lapsed into a state of barbarism* may be so 
termed, — are, in the system of Natural Religion 
which recommends itself to minds instructed by 
civilization and Christianity, to be reckoned 
rather among the permitted exceptions, than as 
coming within those established and general prin- 
ciples of the Divine administration, from which 
the character of the Supreme Governor is to be 
collected. It is the unusual rather than the ordi- 
nary phenomena of nature, and those which are 

* The supposition of an original state of barbarism is of 
course inconsistent with the Mosaic history : and independently 
of this, modern researches have made it highly probable that 
men never emerge from the lowest state of barbarism, without 
the assistance and example of more civilized neighbours. See 
Sumner's Records of Creation. Vol. I. 



132 



SENTIMENTS OF THE HEATHEN 



calamitous, rather than those which are beneficial, 
which first strike upon the mind of man, and 
impel him to believe in the existence of invisible 
beings,* or spirits. It is not the refreshing 
breeze, the genial shower, the daily sunlight, but 
the hurricane, the waterspout, and the eclipse ; 
not the wide spread luxury of health, the vigour 
and utility of reason, the charm of fancy, but the 
ravages of plague, and pestilence, and blight, 
the imbecility of the idiot, the wild ravings of 
the maniac, that remind men of the existence of 
spiritual influences and of supernatural powers : 
and since in these, considered by themselves, 
and without reference to the general laws, of 
which they are the occasional effects, is manifest 
neither benevolence of intention, nor unity of 
design, the religion of the savage, incapable of 
looking beyond them, into general laws or general 
consequences, consists in the dread and the wor- 
ship of one or more malevolent deities, whose 
anger is to be disarmed by prayer, or their thirst 
for destruction appeased by sacrifices. 

" Almost the entire of the religion of the 
Pagan nations," says Dr. Magee,f " consisted in 



* This was written " invisible agents ;" but the word does 
not imply mind. The wind is an invisible agent, but having no 
proper unity, is not a " being." It is mind, and mind alone, 
which can give any unity to material masses. 

\ On the Atonement. Dissert. V. p. 96. His statement is 
perhaps too general. The rites were chiefly of deprecation ; but 
the religion contained also doctrines of a more liberal and en- 
couraging character. 



ON NATURAL RELIGION. 133 

rites of deprecation. Fear of the Divine dis- 
pleasure seems to have been the leading feature in 
their religious impressions ; and in the diversity, 
the costliness, and the cruelty, of their sacrifices 
they sought to appease gods, to whose wrath they 
felt themselves exposed." And further on : " We 
find the reflecting Tacitus pronounce 4 that the 
gods interfere in human concerns but to punish :' 
and Pliny, speaking of the deification of death, 
diseases, and plague, says that 4 these are ranked 
among the gods, whilst with a trembling fear 
we desire to have them pacified.' Cudworth 
also shows, in the instances of Democritus and 
Epicurus, that terror was attached to the notion 
of a divine existence : and that it was with a 
view to get free from this terror, that Epicurus 
laboured to remove the idea of a providential 
administration of human affairs. The testi- 
mony of Plato is likewise strong to the same 
purpose : speaking of the punishment of wicked 
men, he says : 4 All these things hath Nemesis 
decreed to be executed in the second period, by 
the ministry of vindictive terrestrial demons, 
who are overseers of human affairs ; to which 
demons the Supreme God hath committed the 
government of this world! 1 4 Conformably with 
this character of their gods, we find the worship 
of many of the heathen nations to consist in 
mortification and suffering, in cutting their flesh 
with knives, and scorching their limbs with fire. 
Of these unnatural and inhuman exercises of 
devotion ancient history supplies numberless 



134 



SENTIMENTS OF THE HEATHEN 



instances. In the worship of Baal, as related in 
the Book of Kings, and in the consecration of 
Moloch as practised by the Ammonites, and not 
unfrequently by the Hebrews themselves, the 
Sacred Volume affords an incontestable record 
of this diabolical superstition. Similar practices 
are attested by almost every page of the profane 
historian." * * * " And it deserves to be re- 
marked, that these unnatural rites, together with 
that most unnatural of all — human sacrifice — 
are pronounced by Plutarch, to have been in- 
stituted for the purpose of averting the wrath of 
malignant demons." " Thus the Gentile religion, 
in early ages, evidently appears to have been a 
religion of fear. Such has it been found likewise 
in later times ; and such it continues to this 
day." — " From this enumeration of facts," he 
concludes, after quoting a very considerable num- 
ber of authorities both ancient and modern, " it 
seems not difficult to decide, whether the dictate 
of untutored reason be, the conviction of the 
Divine Benevolence, and the persuasion that 
the Supreme Being is to be conciliated by good 
and virtuous conduct alone." 

It is necessary to insist upon the conclusion to 
which Dr. Magee has arrived; inasmuch as it 
goes far to decide the whole question of the 
moral probability of another state of existence. 
Until, lifting our thoughts from nature up to 
nature's God, we can discern a Being rather to 
be loved than feared, there can be no hope, that 



ON NATURAL RELIGION. 



135 



man, upon his departure from this world, will 
enter another and a happier state. 

Let any man who has, by God's mercy, been 
rescued from that state of blindness and terror 
which enthralled the minds of the heathen — from 
polytheism, and idolatry, and the constant dread 
of calamities, the work of malignant deities, or 
demons, which could neither be foreseen, nor 
prevented — seriously and candidly ask himself, 
whether he considers the reasoning powers, even 
of the strongest mind, unaided by Revelation, 
could ever attain a height so far above that of 
the heathen, as to recognise in all events, of 
whatever' character, the hand of One Supreme 
God, Almighty and All-good, the centre and 
source of all moral and intellectual perfection ; — 
in a word, Whether such a mind could have 
discovered the God of modern Natural Theology ? 
Before any one can raise his mind thus, as it 
were, into a lower heaven, whence to contemplate 
the magnificent spectacle of a well ordered and 
harmonious world, and a perfect and all-ruling 
Deity, there are several intermediate positions 
to be taken up ; and which must each be made 
good, and secured from all doubt, before the 
highest can be reached. The ambitious spirit 
seeks to erect a " tower whose top may reach 
unto heaven," but if he set each stone out of its 
true place by but the hundredth part of its 
breadth, he erects a structure, which becomes 
less and less stable as it ascends, and on reaching 



136 SENTIMENTS OF THE HEATHEN 

a certain height, must inevitably fall to the 
ground. 

The first great doctrine to be established, — of 
which the heathen worshippers of malignant 
demons were utterly ignorant — the foundation 
stone of the tower, is The Unity of the God- 
head ; the centralization of all power, legislative 
and executive, in one Supreme Governor of the 
world. For there is no other doctrine than this, 
by which the existence of evil can be so explained, 
as to give man even a slender hope of its final 
removal. Admitting as we may and must admit, 
that there is a Governor of the world, that there 
is a superior Being, who has some power on the 
earth, who does justice and loves mercy, unless 
this Being be indeed Supreme, " to whom shall 
we go," in reliance that he will originate a better 
system than this world presents ? If the evils that 
now prevail, (and whatever evil beings reason, 
unaided by revelation, may point out), prevail by 
their own might now, then can we have no hope 
that good will be triumphant. Our only hope 
must be, that there is one absolute King, who 
tolerates, for reasons of his own, and for a time 
only, the rebellion of his subjects. The doctrine 
of the Unity of the Godhead, the existence of one 
" Lord of all power and might," including, as 
it does, the doctrine of the permission of evil, 
must first be established. And if this whole doc- 
trine can be made out, then we can decide that 
since evil does not exist of necessity, all that evil 



ON NATURAL RELIGION. 137 

I which seems to be inherent in the present con- 
I stitution of the world, may he done away, either 
; by a change in that constitution, or by the dis- 
I entanglement, as it were, of good from evil, by 
I some method devised by infinite wisdom, without 
! any alteration of now subsisting laws. But it is 
from the present constitution of the world, alone, 
that we are to judge of the attributes of God. 
How then are we to arrive at the doctrine which 
alone can give hope of immortality ? Or, — to 
repeat the same argument in another shape, — In 
every part of creation evil in some form inheres, 
and there is apparent imperfection ; in the mind 
and heart of man at least, real imperfection. 
Does this arise from want of wisdom in the Deity 
to foresee, or power to prevent ? or, if he be All- 
wise and Almighty, does He produce the evil, 
and has it any counter-part in the Divine mind ? 
or, if He love not evil, but for reasons inscrutable 
to us permits it (and we cannot frame a more 
promising conjecture than this), whence is our 
hope that it will ever be removed? That the 
Author of all things will ever make things better 
than they are ? 

We can go but a little way, at furthest, beyond 
the heathen nations in determining this great 
question. Modern philosophy has done much 
more to amplify and illustrate whatever gives a 
favourable promise, than to resolve those dif- 
ficulties which create misgiving. 

The Christian philosopher regards the manifold 



138 



SENTIMENTS OF THE HEATHEN 



evils of life either as having reference to the 
past, — in the light of temporal punishments ; — 
or as having reference to the future, — as events, 
permitted by the Deity with whom no evil can 
dwell ; and upon principles and in a manner 
inscrutable to us, " working together for (ulti- 
mate) good." 

By the majority of the heathens they are, and 
have always been regarded either as the work of 
beings of a nature purely malignant, whose pro- | 
per office and chief pleasure is, to punish and 
afflict mankind : or of gods who possessed the 
power, more or less extensively, of conferring 
happiness as well as misery, of blessing as well 
as cursing ; and who sometimes afflicted man- 
kind from feelings of anger and indignation which 
their guilt justly called forth ; sometimes punished 
them, with despotic severity, for neglecting to 
perform all the acts of worship required by their 
invisible tyrants ; and sometimes, from motives 
of jealousy, hurled them down from prosperity, 
which too nearly rivalled the celestial joys ; or 
lastly, in their utter inability to discover a better 
way of accounting for them, they ascribed all 
calamities to fate, or destiny. Not unfrequently 
they combined these different solutions of the 
problem, admitting at once fate, and the gods, 
and evil spirits, as the authors of their misery. 
There is no known system of ancient theology in 
which an attempt is made to grapple with the 
great difficulty of the origin and existence of evil ; 
and reconcile it with the existence of a Being, 



ON NATURAL RELIGION. 



139 



of perfect goodness and infinite power.* No 
•| where do we find any trace of the doctrine that 
|j evil exists by permission, for ultimate ends purely 
\ good, and for a time only : — yet unless this doc- 
trine be admitted, (and it is not without an 
effort that even the Christian philosopher can 
embrace it), there is absolutely no hope left for 
man ; but we are compelled to believe that the 
Deity wants either the will or the power to bring 
about a better order of things, than that which 
we see.f 

In the theological system of Zoroaster, which 
was more or less closely followed over the greater 
part of Asia, the first supposition above men- 
tioned was adopted ; and evil was ascribed to a 



* Central India has been for ages the seat of subtile and 
abstruse metaphysical speculation on theological subjects : and 
many different conjectures have been formed respecting the 
origin of evil. But in all, as far as I have seen, some distinct 
evil principle, existing independently, by fate or necessity, is 
recognised. In Java there is a sect of Buddhists, whose reli- 
gion appears to be a simple theism ; their temples have but one 
idol, and they worship only one God. Yet it is probable that 
they also recognise some separate source of evil. 

-j- It may be observed that the heathen theology is not merely 
a system of poly theism — of gods many — but of gods not always 
acting in concert, and not unfrequently thwarting each other's 
schemes. Homer's machinery turns on this popular notion. 
Fate, with its mysterious influence, moulding the wills and in- 
tentions both of gods and men to the accomplishment of its 
ends, and directing the course of events through eternity, is the 
only idea they had of a Supreme providence and unity of design, 
and this notion was held without any recognition of the Being 
who provided and designed. 



140 SENTIMENTS OF THE HEATHEN 

Being of a nature purely malignant. This doctrine 
of oriental philosophy " proceeded from the hope- 
less inquiry into the origin of evil. Convinced 
that this could not possibly be ascribed to the 
Divine agency, the speculators embraced what 
appeared to be the alternative, and attributed it 
to matter ; and matter must of consequence be 
eternal. And then, when they proceeded to 
consider the various forms of matter, senseless 
and animal, exhibited in the visible world, and 
their seeming imperfections, they found it im- 
possible to account for so many modifications of 
evil, except by the supposed agency of some 
Being, superior indeed to man, but subordinate 
to the Author of all good. At this point ceased 
the uniformity of the fanciful theory ; and it 
branched off into inquiries like the following : 
What was this mighty, though inferior, being ? — 
of what origin, power, attributes? — one and 
alone, or assisted or served by others, equal or 
inferior ? All these points were disputed : all, 
however, agreed as to the independent existence 
of the two principles, good and evil ; and nearly 
all, that " the latter was the Creator of the 
world." * " The first and original Being," says 
Gibbon, f " in whom, or by whom, the universe 
exists, is denominated in the writings of Zoro- 
aster time without bounds ; but it must be con- 
fessed that this infinite substance seems rather a 



* Waddington's History of the Church. Chap. V. 
f Decline and Fall. Chap. VIII. 



ON NATURAL RELIGION. 



141 



metaphysical abstraction of the mind, than a real 
object" [person ?] " endowed with self-conscious- 
ness, or possessed of moral perfections. From 
either the blind, or the intelligent operation of 
this infinite Time, the two secondary but active 
principles of the universe were from all eter- 
nity produced, Ormusd and Ahriman, each of 
them possessed of the powers of creation, but 
each disposed, by his invariable nature, to ex- 
ercise them with different designs. The malice 
of Ahriman has long since violated the harmony 
of the works of Ormusd. Since that fatal irrup- 
tion, the most minute articles of good and evil 
are intimately intermingled and agitated toge- 
ther ; the rankest poisons spring up amidst the 
most salutary plants ; deluges, earthquakes, and 
conflagrations, attest the conflict of nature, and 
the little world of man is perpetually shaken by 
vice and misfortune." But at a destined period 
" the enlightened wisdom of goodness will render 
the power of Ormusd superior to the furious 
malice of his rival. Ahriman and his followers, 
disarmed and subdued, will sink into their native 
darkness ; and virtue will maintain the eternal 
peace and harmony of the universe." 

In more modern times, the doctrines of Zoroas- 
ter were brought into a nearer accordance with 
those of Mohammedanism ; by the supposition 
that Ahriman was an inferior and rebellious 
spirit, the creature of Ormusd. And this change, 
trifling as it may perhaps appear at first sight, 
does in fact completely reverse the probability of 



142 



SENTIMENTS OF THE HEATHEN 



the final restoration of the world. If Ahriman, 
the principle of evil, be an inferior spirit, unequal 
in power to Ormusd, that doctrine remains un- 
impeached, on which the whole moral probability 
of another life depends, — that " there is one 
absolute King, who tolerates, for reasons of his 
own, the rebellion of his subjects ;" but if the 
principle of evil can prevail at all, for any how- 
ever brief a period, by its own might, and in 
opposition to the principle of good, there can be 
no sound reason for expecting that evil will ever 
cease to prevail. It is extravagant and intolera- 
ble to imagine that the universe should be, for 
any moment, without a sovereign ruler ; but that 
while comparative order prevail in this nether 
world, there should be a chaos and a deadly 
struggle, and a continual conflict of first prin- 
ciples in the highest of all high places. Inferior 
powers must succumb at once to superior, and 
nothing but the will of the Supreme, who sits 
" high throned above all height," and whose will 
is the highest law, can occasion any interruption 
of the perfect and eternal subjection of all things 
to Himself. 

The Christian view of the conditions on which 
evil exists is very different from that originally 
propounded by Zoroaster. For reasons which 
we can most darkly conjecture, and by processes 
so utterly mysterious that if this knowledge, the 
knowledge of good and evil, were not matter 
of experience, it would be altogether inconceiv- 
able, God has created wills capable of oppo- 



ON NATURAL RELIGION. 143 

• ; sition to His own will ; and even when they 
l| actually oppose both Him and the wills that 
\ obey Him, He has permitted them still to exist, 
and to contend against all that is good, until a 
great day, known only, — as we can partly un- 
derstand that the fulfilment of the period of this 
mystery of mysteries must be known — to God 
Himself. All this we know to be true, and yet 
can hardly conceive how such things can be. 
There is evil in the world; and yet God, the 
author of all things, is not the author of the evil ! 
Though man lives and moves and has his being 
in God, yet has man a spontaneity of his own ; 
a power of rebelling against and opposing the 
Almighty who made him ; a power of going con- 
trary, if he will, to the will of the Lord of all 
power and might ! 

This we know ; and is not this our knowledge 

OF EVIL ? 

But it is scarcely less marvellous that a mere 
creature, dependent for existence, from moment 
to moment, on its Maker, should have any capa- 
city for rebellion, any spontaneity at all. From 
God all power proceeds, on Him all things 
depend, yet as it seems, He can detach power 
from Himself, and make it independent of Him. 
And the possibility of voluntary obedience is 
hardly less wonderful a thing than the possibility 
of voluntary disobedience. But such obedience 
we know can be : and is not this our knowledge 
of good, that is, of the highest kind of good, 
moral good, or goodness f 



144 



SENTIMENTS OF THE HEATHEN 



But with the knowledge of " His eternal power 
and Godhead," the discoveries of human reason 
come to an end, and the pages of Revelation 
begin. From these pages we learn, that death 
has come into the world, and all our woe, through 
a permitted rebellion ; — since, whether it were 
or were not possible for the Deity to make man 
a voluntary and responsible creature, and yet 
defend him effectually from the assaults of the 
Evil One, the creation of man was the act of 
God ; and his fall, we know, was foreseen and 
prepared for. 

Even supposing this doctrine of the sufferance 
of evil to be fully established, we are yet far 
from any confident expectation of immortality. 
Is evil unavoidable now ; though God be Su- 
preme, and no evil spirit can for a moment 
prevail before him ? If so, whence is to come our 
hope that it will or can be hereafter done away. 
Or again, if the Deity permits it now, though 
not unavoidable, is He nevertheless perfectly 
good ; and inclined to abolish it hereafter. Or, 
if He be perfectly good, and has the power to 
abolish evil, may not the inscrutable reasons 
which lead to its sufference at present, continue 
to hold good to all eternity ? 

The opinions respecting the nature and cha- 
racter of the Deity, that prevailed in Greece and 
Italy, not among the common people, who were 
fondly credulous of all the gross and puerile fables 
of the poets, but among the soundest and most 



ON NATURAL RELIGION. 145 

able reasoners, were scarcely more capable of 
giving a hope of the future removal of evil, than 
those of the oriental believers in OrmuscL* " All 
the polytheism of those countries recognised each 
of the gods as authors alike of good and evil. 
Nor did even the chief of the divinities, under 
whose power the rest were placed, offer any 
exception to the general rule ; for Jupiter not 
only gave good from one urn and ill from 
another, but he was also, according to the bar- 
barous mythology of classical antiquity, himself 
a model at once of human perfections and of 
human vices." In the poems of Homer and 
Hesiod Jove is represented as an all- seeing deity, 
the avenger of every species of wrong and in- 
justice — the patron of the homeless and unfortu- 
nate — the rewarder of the hospitable and reli- 
gious. Calamity and prosperity, whether public 
or private, were regarded as marks of his disap- 
probation. But in the popular fables his character 
was at the same time degraded by licentiousness 
and caprice ; he had the passions as well as the 
form of man ; and the ruler of Olympus was 
made to delight, as terrestrial sovereigns have 
since, in laying aside all state and pomp, in 
order to accomplish, undetected, some low and 
petty intrigue. 



* The latter however, as has been already observed, believed 
in. a final victory of good. But, as Lord Brougham observes in 
his Dissertation on the Origin of Evil, if the two beings were of 
equal power " the universe would be at a stand still;" and if 
they were unequal, what can delay the victory ? 

L 



146 SENTIMENTS OF THE HEATHEN 

The more enlightened of the philosophers, 
while they conformed to the religion of the 
vulgar because it was established by law, and 
perhaps also because they conceived it the best 
fitted to influence grosser minds, did indeed 
ascribe to one Supreme Being, whom they never 
identified with any of the gods of the popular my- 
thology, epithets of very lofty import. "They 
gave him the very same names, and clothed him 
apparently with the same attributes," as Lord 
Brougham has observed,* as Christian philoso- 
phers might have employed. He is called " im- 
mortal, incorruptible j indestructible, — uncreated, 
self-made, self-originating, self-existing," — and is 
said to " have power over all things." The same 
philosophers believed also in the immortality of 
the soul ; and indulged a hope (which who would 
not indulge, who could persuade himself into it ?) 
that an eternity of calm and intellectual happi- 
ness was reserved for the wise and good, after 
the dissolution of the body. But their reasonings 
upon the immortality of the soul were extremely 
vague ; and no moral principles whatever entered 
into them. They believed, it is true, that the 
Deity loved virtue and hated vice, and that the 
virtuous only would be happy hereafter : but they 
did not commonly look to the Deity as the source 
of future bliss. Plato indeed has spoken of the 
soul's departure to another world " to render an 
account" of the deeds done in the body, and has 



* Discourse on Natural Theology. Note vii. 



ON NATURAL RELIGION. 



147 



spoken of the incurably wicked being driven into 
Tartarus, " whence they never more escape" yet 
for the most part the philosophers held that the 
soul was immortal by right of its own nature, 
and that virtue would be its own reward. Socrates 
also hoped, and the hope was not confined to 
him, that the good man would after death be 
among the gods ; and the evil be excluded from 
their council. For the vicious he believed there 
would be, says Cicero, devium quoddam iter, 
seclusum a concilio deorum, — a path leading out 
of the way, and shut off from the seat of the 
gods — whilst they who in this life had imitated 
the life of the gods, should easily return to those 
beings, from among whom they had come. And 
it is plain that the gods were not regarded as 
the dispensers of future happiness. That happi- 
ness each man who had led a godlike life would 
derive from himself, and take his place, unbidden, 
in their exalted abode. 

It was never supposed that the future existence 
would be owing to an exertion of power by the 
Supreme Deity ; that he would cause men to 
live again in order to punish or reward them 
according to his pleasure. " We ought to act in 
all things," says Plato, " so as to have our portion 
in virtue and wisdom in this world, for the strife 
is noble, and great the reward we hope for." The 
Christian reader might be inclined to compare 
this with St. Paul's triumphant boast, when he 
expected a speedy termination of his persecu- 
tions, " I have fought a good fight, I have finished 



148 



SENTIMENTS OF THE HEATHEN 



my course — henceforth there is laid up for me a 
crown of righteousness, which God, the righteous 
judge, shall give me at that day ;" and might 
imagine that Plato looked to the Deity for his 
future reward ; the more especially since his 
expression <*0Aoi/, signifies such a "strife" as took 
place between the combatants at the Grecian 
games, where the conqueror was rewarded with 
a crown by the judges. But Plato held it neces- 
sary to seek after intellectual excellence now, in 
preparation against the hoped for period, from 
which intellect, perfected by sedulous cultivation, 
and freed from the pollution occasioned by its 
alliance with the body, would be all in all for 
ever. Both mind and matter, according to the 
Grecian philosophy, were eternal and indestruc- 
tible : God was but the architect of the world 
out of pre-existing materials ; and the soul of 
man, in more or less close union with the Divine 
mind, had existed from eternity. Some of them 
held that after death it would be re-united to the 
divinity from which it had been separated ; — 
whereby all consciousness and individuality would 
be lost ; and the man virtually annihilated : 
others that it would remain distinct, and retain 
its personality. And it is very remarkable that 
both Plato and Aristotle held that the soul can- 
not exist except in union with some kind of body 
or other ; an opinion which, just as it is in itself, 
and strikingly as it harmonizes with the Scrip- 
tural Revelations of a resurrection and a future 
spiritual body, yet renders the future existence 



ON NATURAL RE L TO TON. 



149 



of the soul improbable on physical grounds. 
For no where but in Scripture, unless in moral 
reasonings which render it likely that the Deity 
himself will interfere, is there ground for the 
expectation that any body except the present will 
ever be united to the soul. The philosophers 
never imagined that the soul would enter into 
another and eternal state by means of a previous 
union with matter ; receiving fresh energies from 
the cooperation of a body, in any sense derived 
out of the earthly and perishable one. On the 
contrary, it was a fancy of Socrates that the por- 
tion of the soul which had been in most intimate 
union with matter, could not emancipate itself, 
but lingered for a time in ghostly form near the 
decaying corpse, and then perished. 

But the force of the reasonings of the Grecian 
philosophers on the immortality of the soul can- 
not be better estimated than by an appeal to the 
writings of Cicero, who has discussed the subject 
with great eloquence and ability, who was well 
acquainted with the opinions of earlier philoso- 
phers, and had an anxious desire to convince 
himself of a life after death. And to his opinions 
we have already referred in the preceding Book. 
The line of argument there taken is that on 
which Cicero himself mainly relies. Though 
throughout his writings he continually recurs to 
his belief in the immortality of the soul, and 
derived from it some real consolation, he was 
far indeed from feeling confidence. He declares 
that " he does not deny that men perish alto- 



150 



SENTIMENTS OF THE HEATHEN 



gether, though he sees no reason why the opinion 
of Plato and Pythagoras should not be true." * 

It is perfectly plain then, that the ancient phi- 
losophers of Greece and Rome did not rest the 
question of man's immortality upon the goodness 
and power of a Supreme Being. In this respect 
their systems are certainly inferior to those of 
the oriental philosophers, who distinctly recog- 
nised the necessity for some great overruling 
Power, to bring good out of evil, and effect the 
future happiness of man. In this disregard is to 
be found an explanation of the otherwise unac- 
countable circumstance, that the Grecian philo- 
sophers offer no attempt at a solution of the 
mystery of the existence of evil. They did not 
ground their expectation of future life and hap- 
piness upon the will and power of the Supreme ; 
but upon the nature and faculties of the soul; 
and after death looked for neither good nor evil 
at the hands of the gods, who interfered indeed, 
as they supposed, with the concerns of this nether 
world, but had no control over the calm and ele- 
vated region occupied by the spirits of the just. 

Very different from this philosophic view was 
the opinion of the vulgar. Yet even they, im- 
pressed as they were with a belief in retribution, 
in another world, at the hands of superior beings, 

* Prseclarum autem nescio quid adepti sunt, quod didicerunt 
se, quum tempus mortis venisset, totos esse perituros. Quod ut 
ita sit, (nihil enim pugno) quid habet ista res aut lsetabile aut 
gloriosum ? etc. Tusc. Quaest. Lib. I. 



ON NATURAL RELIGION. 



151 



did not believe that any Supreme Deity, nor any 
of the gods who interfered with mundane affairs, — 
not unfrequently inflicting upon men temporal 
punishments for their irreligion, — were the au- 
thors of future happiness or misery. The regions 
beyond the grave, they thought, were ruled by 
( gods of their own. 

It would be altogether beside the purpose to 
ii go into any detail of the chief articles of the po- 
ll pular creed of ancient Italy or Greece. Enough 
has been said to show what these creeds did not 
contain : to prove that the God of modern Natural 
Theology was altogether unknown to that portion 
at least of the Gentile world. The most en- 
lightened philosophers had but faint notions of 
the extent of His dominion. He was known to 
them as the Artificer, but not as the Creator of 
the world. Many of them believed that He ex- 
ercised no superintendence over the affairs of 
men. Even the doctrine of the Unity of the 
Godhead, contrary as it was to the popular belief, 
never occupied a prominent place in the exoteric 
philosophical systems. The world beyond the 
grave was exempted from God's control. The 
course of nature, the force of destiny, were not 
identified with His will. Where the heathens 
approached nearest to the truth they conjectured, 
rather than proved ; and would have been unable, 
had they possessed courage to make the attempt, 
to overthrow the popular mythology. The purest 
theism of Java dwells in the midst of unsubdued 
idolatry. Nowhere, but in the writings of some 



152 SENTIMENTS OF THE HEATHEN. 

modern natural theologian, do we find the desired 
union of just and lofty speculations concerning 
the nature of the one God, with warm feelings of 
devotion to Him. Probably philosophy has never 
yet in one instance, since men " wandered, and 
lost the light" of Revelation, brought two or three 
together, to sing praises to the name of the one 
true God, the Maker of Heaven and earth.* We 
are certain however, upon the authority of St. 
Paul, that this universal blindness and coldness 
was " without excuse :" since men were given 
over to idolatry, because they honoured not, nor 
were thankful to God, " when they knew Him :" 
having received this knowledge, it is evidently 
implied, by tradition from their forefathers. But 
how far the Christian theologians, who have, 
(though perhaps with the assistance of that Reve- 
lation which they profess to dispense with for a 
time) demonstrated " His eternal power and 
Godhead" from a consideration of the things that 
are made, are justified in adding the doctrine of 
future states of reward and punishment to their 
system of theology remains to be considered. 



* For further observations on the religion of the Gentiles 
see Appendix. 



153 



CHAPTER III. 

ON THE ARGUMENTS FOR IMMORTALITY, FOUNDED 
UPON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 

THE lowest form of Natural Religion, if in- 
deed it deserve the name, consists, as has 
been observed in the preceding chapter, in the 
dread and the worship of one or more malevolent 
beings, whose anger is to be disarmed by prayer, 
and their thirst for destruction appeased by sacri- 
fices. The next step to this, and undoubtedly a 
most important one, is the recognition of invisible 
agency of a benevolent character. But from this 
point, great diversity of belief has prevailed ; the 
evil and the good, in particular classes of events, 
being sometimes ascribed to one being, who is 
adverse at one time, and propitious at another, 
and sometimes ascribed to two beings, one uni- 
formly the friend, the other the enemy, of man- 
kind. A sufficiently extensive generalization con- 
ducts on the one hand to a Jupiter, on the other 
to an Ormusd and Ahriman. A more extensive 
and accurate examination into the connexion of 
causes and effects, while it is fatal to both these 
systems alike, threatens to conduct to difficulties 
as formidable as any of those which it does away. 
For let us suppose the great truth fully recog- 
nised that the eternal Power and Godhead of 
one Supreme Being are displayed in all the 



154 



ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 



things that are made, in all the events which 
occur upon the earth, without exception — nay, 
let it be admitted that all those evil accidents 
which the unreflecting and untutored savage 
ascribes to the direct agency of malignant spirits, 
are consequences of general laws, of His ap- 
pointment, which so far as their operation can 
be traced, evidently appear to be in the main 
productive of good — that the winds which purify 
the atmosphere and moderate the extremes of 
Wintry cold or Summer heat, are the effect of the 
same laws which produce the withering sirocco, 
and the devastating hurricane ; that an occasional 
interception of the solar or lunar beams is a 
necessary consequence of the essential laws of 
gravitation and perseverance in motion, — these 
truths would seem, at first only to render the 
condition of man more desperate than before. 
The savage trusted to subdue the violence of the 
god of storms, the enemy of man, by prayers 
and offerings, — perhaps by threatenings and pro- 
misings ; the more civilized worshipper of Jupiter 
and Neptune hoped, by similar rites, to appease 
the temporary anger, which, as he imagined, 
had produced the tempest ; but the deist who has 
considered nature and its Author as far but no 
farther than has been hitherto supposed, while 
he derides all such attempts to purchase security, 
can only recommend in their place a stoical 
resignation under inevitable and irretrievable 
calamities, the necessary result of the laws of 
nature. The further the investigation of the 



ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 155 

course of nature, and the relation of causes and 
effects, is carried, the more forcibly are we im- 
pressed with a conviction that the evil which 
prevails, whether physical or moral, is inex- 
tricably ENTANGLED WITH THE GOOD, AND CAN- 
NOT be eradicated without a subversion of the 
whole. The wheat is mingled with tares ; the 
seeds were sown and the plants must grow toge- 
ther ; and our hopes, if any we venture to enter- 
tain, must regard the harvest time, when the 
husbandman who planted the one, and suffered 
the other to grow, shall separate them finally. 
Unless the progress of years should at length 
bring about such a consummation, we may be 
certain that the field of the world will never pre- 
sent a different scene from that which it now 
presents, of mingled good and evil. 

But here we are immediately pressed by a 
great difficulty. According to the parable to 
which reference has just been made, after the 
good seed had been sown by the husbandman, 
" while men slept his enemy came and sowed 
tares among the wheat ;" and these having been 
once sown, were of necessity suffered to remain. 
But, to confine our attention at present to ex- 
ternal nature, — the evil does not seem to have 
been originally separate from the good ; and 
even if it were, we cannot conceive it to have 
been inserted, like the tares, without the know- 
ledge of Him who sowed the good seed. We 
are informed indeed by Revelation, that the 
world is not as originally constituted ; but that 



156 



ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 



the enemy for reasons inscrutable to us was 
permitted to sow his tares, and a curse was con- 
sequently passed upon the earth, which took 
effect upon the external world, as well as upon 
the soul of man. But human philosophy is alto- 
gether unable, by any however careful investi- 
gation of natural operations, to arrive at this 
conclusion ; we cannot even in thought radically 
separate all physical evil from all physical good, 
and imagine a state of things in which the latter 
could have existed without the former, by means 
of any general and uniform laws. Nay, it may 
further be observed, that certain parts of our 
moral constitution imply the existence of evil, and 
the adaptation of man to it by his Maker, e. g. 
The innate feeling of compassion is as good an 
indication that man was intended to live in a world 
of suffering, as the structure of his teeth is of his 
being intended to eat such various kinds of food 
as the earth furnishes. With very few exceptions 
then, if any, physical good and evil seem to be 
essentially connected, good often springing out of 
evil, and evil arising from good. And so close has 
this connection appeared to some philosophers, 
that they have endeavoured to show that the sys- 
tem of external nature is a system of optimism ; 
they have sought to vindicate the Divine wisdom 
and goodness by proving that the constitution of 
things, though not perfect absolutely, and pro- 
ductive of unmingled enjoyment, could not be 
altered for the better ; that no natural law, nor 



ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 



157 



; any disposition of matter, at least upon a large 
. scale, could possibly be altered in any way, so 
as not to produce on the whole more evil than 
good by the change. But man's inability to 
discover how the constitution of the external 
! world could be improved, — admitting that this 
inability exists, — does in fact decide nothing. 
We have not faculties equal to the investigation. 
We should not be justified in asserting that by 
the coercion of all evil thoughts and tendencies, 
with slight changes in the physical laws, the 
Deity could not convert this earth into a paradise, 
in which sin, and pain of every species, would 
be alike unknown. No one who admits the 
authority of Revelation can venture altogether to 
deny the possibility of such a restoration, unless 
he is prepared to treat it as absolutely certain, that 
the prophecies seeming to relate to a millennial 
period will not be literally fulfilled. Part of the 
curse was, that men should eat of the fruit of the 
ground in the sweat of their brow. To fallen man 
the necessity for labour is unquestionably bene- 
ficial upon the whole, though attended with many 
and severe sufferings : and the properties of the 
soil and of the plants it nourishes may be rela- 
tively, though not absolutely the best. But even 
this relative goodness will no longer be found, if 
we regard the whole race of fallen man, and the 
present system of things only. All things work 
together for good, we are told, " to them that 
love God, to them who are the called according 



158 ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 

to his purpose."* On such as disregard Him, we 
have, on the same authority, much reason to think 
that the world will bring positive evils, unpro- 
ductive of future good, but rather tending to 
increase their final misery, by increasing their 
present depravity. It appears then, that even 
with the aid of the first chapters of Genesis, to 
help out our Natural Theology, we can find no 
good ground for expecting a restitution of the 
world to a paradisaical state ; and that the san- 
guine views of the optimists are in some respects 
darkened, even by the encouraging assurance 
held out to Christians by St. Paul. 

But we must endeavour, for the present pur- 
pose, to put aside the authority of Scripture, and 
walk without its light. We must, at the outset, 
consider ourselves to be destitute of any positive 
knowledge that the moral and physical constitu- 
tion of the world were ever different from what 
we now find them to be, of any reason for sup- 
posing that a renovation and restitution will take 
place at some future period; or that another 
world exists, wherein compensation will be made 
for all the evil and misery of this. And we 
shall now proceed to examine the weight of 
some of the strongest arguments which have been 
brought forward of late years, by writers of emi- 
nence, in favour of the latter supposition. 



* Romans, viii. 28. 



ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 159 

" The miseries of life," says Dr. Chalmers, 
j " in their great and general amount, are resolv- 
able into moral causes ; and did each man suffer 
here, accurately in proportion to his own sins, 
there might be less reason for the anticipation of 
another state hereafter. But this proportion is, 
in no individual instance perhaps, ever realized 
on this side of death. The miseries of the good 
are still due to a moral perversity — though but 
to the moral perversity of others, not of his own. 
He suffers from the injustice and calumny, and 
violence and evil tempers, of those who are around 
him." * * * u It is this inequality of fortune, or 
rather of enjoyment, which forms the most po- 
pular, and enters as a constituent part at least, 
into the most powerful argument, which nature 
furnishes, for the immortality of the soul. We 
cannot imagine of a God of Righteousness, that 
he will leave any questions of justice unsettled ; 
and there is nothing which more powerfully sug- 
gests to the human conscience the apprehension 
of a life to come, than that in this life there 
should be so many unsettled questions of justice, 
— first between man and man, secondly between 
man and his Maker." * * * " We might here 
expatiate on the monstrous, the wholesale atro- 
cities, perpetrated on the defenceless by the 
strong ; and which custom has almost legalized — 
having stood their ground against the indigna- 
tion of the upright and good for many ages. 
Perhaps for the most gigantic example of this, in 



160 ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 

the dark annals of our guilty world, we should 
turn our eyes upon injured Africa, — that . devoted 
region where the lust of gain has made the 
fiercest and fullest exhibition of its hardihood ; 
and whose weeping families are broken up in 
thousands every year, that the families of Europe 
might the more delicately and luxuriously regale 
themselves." "It is a picturesque, and seems a 
powerful argument for some future day of retri- 
bution, when we look, on the one hand, to the 
prosperity of the lordly oppressor, wrung from 
the sufferings of a captive and subjugated people, 
and look, on the other, to the tears and the 
untold agony of the hundreds beneath him, whose 
lives of dreariness and hard labour are tenfold 
imbittered, by the imagery of that dear and dis- 
tant land from which they have been irrecover- 
ably torn." * * * " There are sufferings for 
which there is no redress or rectification upon 
earth, inequalities between man and man, of 
which there is no adjustment here, — but because 
of that very reason, there is the utmost desire, 
and we might add expectancy of our nature, that 
there shall be an adjustment hereafter. In the 
unsated appetency of our hearts for justice, there 
is all the force of an appeal to the Being who 
planted the appetite within us ; and we feel that 
if death is to make sudden disruption, in the 
midst of ail these unfinished questions, and so to 
leave them eternally, — we feel a violence done 
both to our own moral constitution, and to the 
high jurisprudence of Him who framed us." 



/ 

/ 

ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 16 1 

But there are, furthermore, in this life, un- 
finished questions between man and his Maker. 
The same conscience which asserts its own supre- 
macy within the heart, suggests the God and the 
moral governor who placed it there. It is thus 
that man not only takes cognizance of his own 
delinquencies ; but he connects them with the 
thought of a lawgiver to whom he is accountable. 
He passes, by one step, and with rapid inference, 
from the feeling of a judge who is within, to the 
fear of a judge who sits in high authority over 
him." * * * " Now it is thus that men are led 
irresistibly to the anticipation of a future state, — 
not by their hopes, we think, but by their fears, 
not by a sense of unfulfilled promises, but by the 
sense and the terror of unfulfilled penalties ; by 
their sense of a judgment not yet executed, of a 
wrath not yet discharged upon them." * * * 
" If there be no future state*' — e£ the moral con- 
stitution of man is stripped of its significaney, 
and the Author of that constitution is stripped of 
His wisdom and authority and honour."* 

Dr. Chalmers has here not only admitted, but 
assumed as the foundation of his argument, that 
if the present world, with the great moral evils, 
the oppression of man, and the defiance of God, 
which are permitted to have place therein, be 
considered in themselves alone, and without any 
relation to a future state, they do not bear wit- 



* Bridgewater Treatise. Vol. II. chap. 10. 
M 



162 



ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 



ness to the Divine goodness : but would lead men 
to believe their Creator was one without righte- 
ousness and without authority. This is a tre- 
mendous conclusion ; and one from which, we 
trust, some way of escape will be found, without 
availing ourselves of the method pointed out by 
Dr. Chalmers, even though we should therefore 
be compelled to take refuge in utter doubt and 
uncertainty. " The present world," say the 
passages just quoted, " not only exhibits a de- 
plorable amount of moral evil ; but it also bears 
witness of, and points to, a future world, where 
the evils shall all be remedied." But where is 
this witness to be found ? Surely not in the evils 
themselves. " We cannot imagine," says Dr. Chal- 
mers, " that a God of Righteousness will leave 
any questions of justice unsettled." But the God 
of this world does leave most questions of justice 
unsettled : and the present prevalence of trium- 
phant injustice assuredly does not in itself hew 
witness to the righteousness of God, and to a 
future administration upon principles directly 
opposite to those which are now suffered to pre- 
vail. In a former part of the work from which 
the foregoing passages have been extracted, Dr. 
Chalmers has clearly pointed out the error of 
those who endeavour to reconcile perfect Divine 
benevolence with the existence of much misery 
in this world, by the supposition of a future state, 
while at the same time they rest their expecta- 
tions of a future state upon an assumption of per- 
fect benevolence : — who argue, that if the Deity 



ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 



163 



be perfectly benevolent (which they expect will 
be admitted), there must be a future state ; and 
again, that if there be a future state (which also 
they confidently assume in its turn), the Deity 
must be perfectly benevolent. Nevertheless an 
error nearly or altogether the same, appears to 
run through the whole of the above argument for 
the immortality of man, based upon the assump- 
tion of the perfect justice of the Deity. The 
future state is inferred from the perfect justice 
of God; but what assurance can we have of the 
perfection of that justice, so long as, avoiding the 
illogical mode of argument just mentioned, we 
confine our view to the present world alone f 
That world, considered as one wherein injustice 
often triumphs, can give us no ground for hope : 
and in what other point of view shall we regard 
it, that we may find assurances strong enough to 
remove those gloomy misgivings which the suc- 
cess of wickedness is calculated to excite ? The 
moral Governor of the world has indeed so ap- 
pointed the course of human affairs, as clearly to 
indicate " which side He is of" yet, notwith- 
standing that the consequences of human conduct 
are generally such as to mark his approbation 
and encouragement of virtue, He often suffers 
vice to go unpunished. This sufferance does 
indeed, to our imperfect faculties, seem to be, 
in itself, irreconcilable with perfect justice : and 
we are tempted to seek for an explanation in the 
hypothesis of a future world. But would even 
the admission of this hypothesis really remove 



164 



ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 



the difficulty ? The answer, if we will fairly con- 
sider the matter, must be, that it will not. The 
sufferance, for example, of the enormous iniquities 
and cruelties of the slave trade, is no less an 
enigma to the Christian philosopher, than to the 
deist who expects no future life. 

We do not clearly perceive how any subse- 
quent bounty of God, to those who were unjustly 
afflicted, in this life, by the tyranny of man, how- 
ever richly and liberally, and for however long' 
a time that bounty be bestowed, can altogether 
do away the moral wrong which seems to have 
been committed in the first instance, in the per- 
mission of that tyranny by One who had power to 
prevent it. In such a case as this, the doctrine 
of compensation can be of no service. Between 
man and man, indeed, evil is sometimes remedied 
by the interference of a court of justice, which 
decrees that a compensation shall be paid. And 
this compensation is sometimes so ample, in pro- 
portion to the injury suffered, that he who obtains 
it has, on the whole, no cause to regret the incon- 
venience he endured for a time. But if that 
body in a state, which is charged with the admi- 
nistration of justice, should in any case where it 
had power to interfere in the first instance, permit 
injustice to be done, because it could be remedied 
afterwards, its conduct would plainly be contrary 
to the first principles of right and wrong, as sub- 
sisting between man and man. The intention to 
compensate would be no justification whatever. 
" It is impossible to imagine that a God of Righ- 



ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 165 

teousness would leave any questions of justice 
unsettled." But, if we may presume to judge of 
questions so profound, — does it not appear that 
there is some moral wrong done, by the original 
permission of injustice ; by permitting that moral 
derangement to take place, which may afterwards 
be rectified ? 

To take an example of the other class. Is it 
consistent with our human and undoubtedly most 
inadequate notions of right and wrong, that the 
Deity should permit men to despise His laws and 
blaspheme His name, because He has the power, 
and has decreed, to punish them after death ? 
Does not the permission of the insult to His most 
holy name seem to us to be in itself derogatory 
to the Divine dignity ; an injury not to be ex- 
tenuated by any subsequent punishment of the 
offenders ? These are difficulties, which it is 
evidently beyond our power to resolve. We 
cannot discern the reasons for which the Deity 
sees fit to suffer so great moral evils to prevail in 
this present world. The hypothesis of another 
world is utterly insufficient. Unless therefore 
we are to abandon our belief in the perfect justice 
of the moral Governor of the world, our legiti- 
mate, although discouraging conclusion must be, 
that this sufferance of oppression and of blas- 
phemy, to which we are reluctant witnesses, is 
in itself for some altogether inscrutable reasons, 
just and fitting in the eyes of Him whose thoughts 
are not as our thoughts. For these present evils, 
when considered in relation to another world, do 



166 ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 

not therefore change their aspect ; they remain 
evils, unaccountable evils, still. Unaccountable 
they are, even to the Christian : for, according 
to our human notions of a righteous moral admi- 
nistration, the first duty of the moral Governor 
is, to prevent : and a future punishment seems to 
us to be no justification whatever of a deliberate 
non-prevention. It is from Revelation alone that 
we can form even the faintest plausible conjec- 
tures, as to the true nature of the " long-suffering" 
of God. 

Further, it is an objection of considerable weight 
against this supposition, of a future and remedial 
world, that philosophers have never had recourse 
to it, to explain the difficulties arising from the 
existence of many physical evils. Yet these dif- 
ficulties are of precisely the same nature with 
those which are met with in the moral world, 
though they do not come so nearly home to men's 
business and bosoms, and so loudly summon us 
to serious reflection. 

That the Deity, who is on the side of virtue, 
wills also the happiness of his creatures, is per- 
fectly plain. We may be sure, without the express 
word of God, that every sparrow is under His 
care, — that His eye is over all his works. Of 
the provisions made for the maintenance of the 
various races of irresponsible creatures the great 
end and aim appears to have been, the promotion 
of animal enjoyment. Yet among these creatures 
sickness and want, and pain of many kinds, bodily 



ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 



167 



and mental, prevail to such an extent as to con- 
stitute a formidable exception at least to the gene- 
ral rule — that enjoyment is the end of their being. 
Perhaps among the enjoyments of animals there is 
none which seems more beautiful and more sacred, 
and more nearly allied to the noblest and purest 
feelings of humanity, than the love of mothers 
for their young. Why then is the panther per- 
mitted to tear the young antelope from its dam ? 
There is a difficulty here of the same kind with 
that which we perceived in the sufferance of the 
slave trade : and in one respect even a greater 
difficulty. For in the latter case the agents are 
following the impulses of a perverted nature, 
and the voice of God within them is protesting 
still, from time to time, against the enormities 
they perpetrate. But the leopard has no com- 
punction, he has in his constitution no opposing 
principles ; he was formed by the Deity to be a 
beast of prey, and nothing more. And thus is 
the Divine sanction evidently given to an act, 
which to every sensitive mind is painful, and in 
a degree, shocking. So also is it undoubtedly 
lawful for man to use animals for food. He is 
by nature carnivorous, formed to ensnare and to 
kill, — to masticate, and to thrive upon, flesh : 
(and he has moreover been given, according to 
the sacred records, an express permission to exert 
his dominion over the inferior animals, even to 
this extremity.) Nevertheless the slaughterhouse 
presents a scene horrible alike to the senses, the 
imagination, and the feelings : and the necessity 



168 



ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 



for its establishment appears to be a thing to be 
deplored, a hardship, an evil. 

Again, what multitudes of creatures, especially 
of the various winged tribes, of insects and of 
birds, perish annually through the rigours of 
winter, or from premature birth in a wet spring ! 
How acutely painful are the numerous deaths 
which sometimes ensue from a single case of 
that inscrutable disease hydrophobia! It offers 
not even an approach towards a solution of the 
mystery of physical evil, that the human mind, 
with its limited faculties, is incapable of suggest- 
ing any method by which these evils could be 
removed, without introducing more serious evils 
in their stead. It is possible, indeed, that any 
change would be for the worse. Humanly speak- 
ing, there may be, though we are far, very far, 
from a certainty that there actually exists, what 
is called an optimism, or more properly, a com- 
parative goodness, in the present constitution of 
the physical world. Yet the evils remain ; and 
their sufferance by One Almighty and All-wise 
remains as inexplicable as before. " The case 
of animals devouring one another," says Paley, 
" furnishes a consideration of large extent. To 
judge whether this, as a general provision, can 
be deemed an evil, even so far as we understand 
its consequences, which probably is a partial 
understanding, the following reflections are fit to 
be attended to. — Immortality upon this earth is 
out of the question. Without death there could 
be no generation, no sexes, no parental relation, 



ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 169 

that is, as things are constituted, no animal 
happiness." * * * * " The three methods by 
which life is usually put an end to, are, acute 
diseases, decay, and violence," and he argues, 
with much apparent reason, that the latter is the 
least painful death, " as things are constituted ;" 
that, under the existing system, it is such a kind 
of death as a benevolent Creator would prefer to 
inflict. But since that system owes its origin to 
the same Creator, it does not render the mystery 
of the apparent evil the less, to argue that the 
evil might have been greater : inasmuch as it is 
admitted on all hands, that for aught we can 
know, there might have been another constitution 
of things, without any such evils at all. 

And in this particular instance, it may be ob- 
served, Paley is proving too much : since it does 
not appear that a violent death is the fate of the 
majority of animated creatures. 

There are then in the natural world evils, the 
amount of which may be estimated differently by 
different minds, but which the notion of optimism 
cannot explain away : present evils, for some of 
which there does not appear to be the slightest 
prospect, or even possibility, of any future remedy. 
If then the sufferance of these physical evils be 
consistent with the Divine benevolence, though 
they be all unredressed, since no immortal and 
painless life is reserved for the inferior creatures,* 



* It would be contrary to the principles of fair argument, to 
seek to prove the unlikelihood of a future state reserved for 
man, by any analogy drawn from the condition of inferior ani- 



170 



ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 



are we justified in asserting that the prevalence 
of evils in the moral world, the administration of 
which we can comprehend far less than we can 
that of the physical, cannot be reconciled with 
the perfection of justice, unless compensation and 
retribution be made in another state ? 

But further, we must conclude, from many 
natural analogies, — and Scripture confirms the 
conclusion— that in a vast number of cases the 
exact compensation, the appropriate retribution, 
the future settling of all questions of justice now 
pending between man and man, which some sup- 
pose necessary to vindicate the perfection of the 
Divine attributes, is a thing impossible. Where, 
in this world, the guilty triumph and enjoy pros- 



mals, as made known to us merely by Scripture. We do not 
therefore in this place rely upon that mentioned of " the brutes 
that perish," in the 49th Psalm; — where the context plainly 
implies that God will not " redeem from the power of the grave" 
the souls, i. e. lives, of any of the brutes, any more than of " the 
fool and the brutish person." 

But it must be plain, upon a little consideration, that unless 
the whole nature of the inferior animals be supposed to be 
changed, they must live in a world very nearly resembling this, 
or their several propensities must remain ungratified. Such a 
world is their fitting sphere. How then shall we dispose of the 
praedacious orders ? unquestionably the tiger growling over his 
prey, and rending its quivering limbs with his bloody teeth, is 
as properly an object of the Creator's care, as the lamb that 
grazes in the meadow. And we doubt not that it is He, who 
" fills the appetite of the young lions, when they couch in their 
dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait ;" and who teacheth 
the young ones of the eagle to " suck up blood." Even the 



ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 171 

perity, and the innocent suffer from their guilt, 
j retaining still their own innocency, we may in- 
dulge a hope, that a day of retribution will come 
at last, and that the sufferers on earth will be 
taken to God, and be comforted. But what if 
part of the scheme of guilt, or its necessary con- 
sequence, be the corruption of the innocent ? 
What if the wickedness of the parents entail upon 
the children, as assuredly it too often does entail 
upon them, a wickedness equally great ? Reason 
declares, that the sins of the fathers will be visited 
upon the children, unto the third and fourth 
generation, both in this world, and in whatever 
world may lie beyond it, — and Revelation con- 
firms the terrible sentence. Innocence is in this 
life exposed to many irretrievable calamities ; and 



lamb is virtually prsedacious ; for the grass is full of living- 
beings. 

Again, is death to be painless : a miraculous extinction of a 
creature the moment before in the possession of perfect health 
and unimpaired happiness ? or, if death in any shape seem to 
be somewhat of an evil, are all creatures to go on multiplying 
for ever ? There is no unravelling all this ; and natural reason 
is compelled to return from its extravagant excursion, and admit 
that the present natural world, and the irresponsible creatures 
which inhabit it, were made for each otlier in every respect. 
We make an exception in the case of man, not because some of 
his propensities find in this world an imperfect gratification ; 
(for such imperfection is traceable everywhere throughout na- 
ture ; and may be exemplified by any stunted tree) but because 
we fancy he has propensities not at all intended for gratification 
in such a world as this ; but implanted in his nature beforehand, 
like the budding wings of the butterfly in the body of the cater- 
pillar, for future exercise. 



172 



ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 



a melancholy but irresistible analogy shows, that 
on all except the disciples of Christ — even the 
least of whom has powers above those of the 
highest human philosophy — man has power to 
bring destruction, irrevocable ruin, both of body 
and soul. It is of no avail to argue that the 
innocent, who yield to the temptations of the 
guilty, and are corrupted, if they suffer in ano- 
ther world, will meet only a fitting retribution ; 
it will still be true, that he who tempted them 
was permitted to do a mischief, which must be 
absolutely and for ever without a remedy. 

Undoubtedly it is not without reluctance that 
the mind will admit the force of any philosophical 
argument of which the tendency should seem to 
be to render a future day of reckoning improba- 
ble. The mind hesitates and shrinks back, in 
fear at its own presumption, in for a moment 
entertaining a doubt as to the reality of future 
punishment and reward. The idea of insulted 
Majesty vindicating itself at last by a tremendous 
retribution on all unrighteousness of men, and 
welcoming its faithful servants to a scene of un- 
utterable joy, has become familiarised to the 
thoughts, and is wound up with all our notions 
of religion. And God forbid that anything in 
this book should appear to have a tendency to 
render that improbable which the Word of God 
has most solemnly and plainly declared. But 
still it must be insisted that human reason, so 



ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 



173 



long as it relies on its native strength alone, 
cannot declare this awful truth. 

We look abroad into the world, and we behold 
numerous instances of the sufferance of moral 
wrong, of which, as far as reason can inform us, 
neither time nor eternity shall or can ever do 
away the evil consequences. And if, in the 
midst of our perplexity we turn to the Book of 
God, we obtain no relief : we discover that rea- 
son was not an erring guide, that it bore no 
fallacious testimony. No hope whatever is held 
out in Scripture of any remedy for all the evil 
originally introduced through the permission 
given to Satan to become the tempter of mankind. 
Through that original and mysterious sufferance 
of evil the sentence of death — by way of natural 
and necessary consequence, as we may believe, — 
passed upon all mankind ; and the word of Him, 
in whom alone man has any hope of immortality, 
has declared that in many, aye, in the majority 
of instances, His salvation will be of no avail. 
Now, inasmuch as we know that all the evil 
wrought upon earth by the sons of men is the 
work of the servants of Satan, all those particular 
moral evils therefore which have come in the 
train of the first successful temptation must be 
reckoned to be evils of the same class, and be 
ascribed to the same motives or principles — if 
we may so speak — in the unfathomable depth of 
the Divine counsels, that caused the sufferance 
of that temptation : and if the consequences which 



174 ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 



Revelation teaches us to refer to that temptation 
be to a large extent irremediable, we are com- 
pelled to doubt, perhaps even forbidden to hope, 
that the miseries caused by wickedness now shall 
ever find a remedy. There are indeed many, 
to revert again to Dr. Chalmers's well chosen and 
picturesque illustration, " whose lives of dreari- 
ness and hard labour are imbittered by the 
imagery of that dear and distant land from which 
they have been irrecoverably torn." Their tears, 
their dying sighs may cry unto God, like the 
blood of Abel, for vengeance against the op- 
pressor. But if the victims themselves remain 
utterly polluted in nature, can we dare to hope 
that these tears and sighs will come before Him, 
demanding eternal happiness as the compensation 
for earthly sufferings ? If so, then can man be 
saved by his own blood ; and even by that blood 
poured out against his will ; when he is not, like 
" the innocents" in the days of Herod, so much 
as an unconscious martyr in the cause of truth. 
No : the pollution of which those slaves are un- 
conscious, the alienation from God of which they 
complain not, will cry with a far louder voice 
of accusation than all their sighs and groans, 
calling for judgment on the oppressors who have 
exasperated those moral evils, for which, it is re- 
peated, heaven itself has no remedy. 

To sum up the argument which has been just 
employed : — The doctrine of compensation, in 
those cases where we may conceive compensa- 
tion to be possible, does not in any wise explain 



ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 175 

away the mystery of the sufferance of evil ; and 
there are moreover many cases in which, arguing 
from the analogy of things in this world, we 
must suppose a recompense to be impossible. 
And Scripture confirms this awful conjecture, by 
showing us that there does subsist an amount of 
mpral evil, great beyond all calculation, heinous 
beyond all conception, which — however it may 
contribute towards the production of some ulti- 
mate good, beyond its own sphere, is in itself only 
and for ever a thing hateful and incurable : com- 
pelling us to a belief, that the present sufferance 
of evil is for some inscrutable reasons right and 
fitting in itself, without any reference to a future 
dispensation.* 

There are multitudes among the children of 
Adam — may we not say a majority of the whole 
race ? — of each of whom it may be said, " It were 
better for that man that he had never been born." 
Such is the sentence at once of Scripture and of 
reason. " May it not be said of any person, upon 
his being born into the world, He may behave so 
as to be of no service to it, but by being made an 
example of the woful effects of vice and folly : 
that he may, as any one may if he will, incur an 



* He ventures upon dangerous ground, who maintains that 
men ought to look for a future state of reward and consolation 
from the justice of the Deity. For in Scripture immortal life 
is represented as the free gift of God : who has " predestinated 
(his redeemed) to the adoption of children, according to the 
good pleasure of his will" 



176 ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 

infamous execution from the hands of civil justice ; 
or in some other course of extravagance shorten 
his days ; or bring upon himself infamy and dis- 
eases worse than death : so that it had been 
better for him, even with regard to the present 
world, that he had never been born?"* The 
same thing may be said of many who do not by 
their wickedness incur misfortunes such as Butler 
has spoken of. Reason pronounces the scriptural 
sentence upon all those who from selfish disposi- 
tions and deadened feelings deal hardly with 
others, even though they commit no act of ex- 
treme injustice or violence, such as to render them 
amenable to the penal laws of their country ; 
and though they may through a long life pursue, 
unchecked, a career of worldly prosperity. Such 
as these neither know nor can confer any portion 
of true happiness, their thoughts are more or less 
evil continually, in all meetings where charity 
reigns they are foul blemishes. Scripture pro- 
nounces the sentence upon a yet larger number ; 
and in fearful accordance with that course of 
divine administration in this world, which often 
brings sufferings and punishments upon those 
who err, not from evil propensities and wilful 
misconduct, but from mere ignorance and inad- 
vertence, it declares that even of those who have 
heard of the name of Christ, the majority shall 
not be chosen to everlasting life. 

It is truly astonishing that these facts should 

* Butler's Analogy. Part. I. Chap. II. 



OX THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 177 

be so greatly disregarded, and that not only the 
mere moralists, but even religious writers, should 
display such " fearlessness as to what may be 
hereafter under the government of God." Some 
of them represent all men as by nature only the 
weakly erring children of an indulgent Father, 
who knows all their frailty, and will never be 
extreme to mark their misconduct. Our race, 
it would appear from their specious representa- 
tions, is advancing gradually in knowledge and 
virtue, in such a path — beyond doubt ! — as must 
eventually lead to divine favour and universal 
happiness. And the religious w T riters, listening 
only to half the message from heaven,* regard the 
present world with an unaccountable complacency, 
as if nothing but virtue and happiness were to be 
found beyond it ; and as if their decreed future 
dominion was enough to explain away all the 
mystery of permitted wickedness and pain. But 
" every attempt to explain the wisdom and the 
exact ultimate intention of the Supreme Being, 
in constituting a nature subject in so fatal a 
degree to moral evil, will fail. And even if a 



* The Christian's book is called the Gospel, — the book of 
good tidings. But it may be called, with equal justice (to sinful 
man), a book of evil tidings, revealing indignation and wrath, 
tribulation and anguish. Nay with greater justice : for the 
passages in the Old Testament which point to a happy immor- 
tality are far more numerous than those which speak of punish- 
ment to come, — and if the New Testament " brought life and 
immortality to light" it has, with equal plainness, revealed the 
regions of darkness, and of wailing, and of eternal death. 

N . s 



178 ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 

new Revelation were given to turn this dark 
inquiry into noonday, it would make no difference 
in the actual state of things. An extension of 
knowledge could not reverse the fact, that the 
human nature has displayed, through every age, 
the most aggravated proofs of being in a deplor- 
able and hateful condition, whatever were the 
reasons for giving a moral agent a constitution 
which it was foreseen would soon be found in 
this condition. * * * * To this exclusive sphere, 
of our own condition and interests, Revelation 
confines our attention ; and pours contempt, 
though not more than experience pours, on all 
presumption to reason on those grand unknown 
principles according to which the Almighty dis- 
poses the universe. * * * * Considering man in 
this view, the sacred oracles have represented 
him as a more melancholy object than Nineveh or 
Babylon in ruins ; and an infinite aggregate of 
obvious facts confirms the doctrine. This doc- 
trine then is absolute authority in our specula- 
tions on human nature." * * * * But " our 
elegant and amusing moralists, while they censure 
the follies and vices of mankind, maintain that 
many of these are accidental to the human cha- 
racter, rather than a disclosure of intrinsic qua- 
lities. Others do indeed spring radically from 
the nature, but they are only the wild weeds of 
a virtuous soil. Man is still a very dignified and 
noble being, with strong dispositions to all excel- 
lence, holding a proud eminence in the ranks of 
existence, and (if such a being is adverted to) 



ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 179 



high in the favour of his Creator. The measure 
of virtue in the world vastly exceeds that of 
depravity ; we should not indulge a fanatical 
rigour in our judgments of mankind ; nor be 
always reverting to an ideal perfection ; nor ac- 
custom ourselves to contemplate the Almighty 
always in the dark majesty of justice. — None of 
their speculations seem to acknowledge the gloomy 
fact, which the New Testament so often asserts 
or implies, that all men are 4 by nature children 
wrath.' " * 

This doctrine of universal condemnation is 
indeed terrible, and one which every mind not 
stayed and strengthened by the hopes of the Gos- 
pel, would gladly hide from itself, if possible : so 
terrible indeed, that had this portion of the truth 
been revealed at a period prior to that which 
brought life and immortality to light, all who 
believed would have been driven to utter despe- 
ration, and like the evil spirits, would have trem- 
bled, but not repented. And even many of those 
who write professedly to vindicate the truths of 
Scripture, seem unwilling to admit the full extent 
of this doctrine, and to judge of the natural con- 
stitution of the world, as it is incumbent upon 
them to judge, by the light, or rather by the 
darkness, of this part of the Revelation. Thus 
it has been argued in favour of a future state, — 
that is, of a happy immortality, which is all these 
writers seem to contemplate, — " The further we 



* Foster's Essays. Last letter. 



180 



ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 



carry our researches into the physical and the 
moral world, the stronger becomes our conviction 
that no pure evil exists. Amidst the numerous 
pains and sorrows which we are doomed to bear, 
we have every reason to believe, that there is not 
one, which has not a tendency to improve our 
nature, and to make us wiser and better. The 
beneficial effect of adversity it would be easy to 
illustrate by a variety of examples. * * * Appa- 
rent exceptions doubtless occur ; but the general 
constitution of the system in which we are placed, 
warrants the affirmation that few, if any, direct 
or pure evils exist ; and every pain, every sorrow, 
every discord, and every irregularity, permitted 
under the divine government, tend to the pro- 
duction of greater harmony and higher good. 
It would be repugnant then to the general plan 
of the Divine administration to suppose, that the 
scene of human life should close with suffering. 
* * * Is it not probable therefore, that death, 
like all our other sufferings, will conduce to our 
benefit, and, by a temporary suspension of our 
existence, if it is to be suspended, tend ultimately 
to improve it, and advance us to higher happi- 
ness? This supposition will reconcile it to the 
general plan of the Divine administration. * * * 
How is the sufferer benefited by this the last of 
all the evils which he is doomed to undergo, if 
there be no future state ? Is his sun to set for 
ever in a cloud ? * * * Under the omniscient 
eye of unchangeable Benevolence, no evil can 
take place, not eventually beneficial to the suf- 



ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL, 



181 



ferer himself." * It is really hard to say whether 
this preposterous argument is more directly con- 
tradicted by the words of Scripture, or by the 
daily experience of human life. " All things 
work together for good to them that love God ; 
to them that are the called according to his pur- 
pose." Not for all men, but for those who are 
graciously called out from among the great mul- 
titude of the ungodly, do all things work together 
for good. Was the case of Judas an apparent 
exception only ? or shall any dare to assert that 
he is the only one among the sons of Adam, 
whose " end is destruction?" The sun of many 
shall, most assuredly, " set for ever in a cloud :" 
and they will be covered with " the blackness of 
darkness for ever," as says the infallible word.f 
" It would be easy," it seems, " to illustrate by 
a variety of examples the beneficial effects of 
adversity ;" and " all pains and sorrows tend to 



* Crombie's Natural Theology. Essay IV. Sect. vi. 

\ The writer of the passage here quoted has ventured to say, 
in another place, — " We have every reason to hope that the suf- 
ferings of the wicked hereafter will be remedial, and will be 
continued until the purposes of the Divine Being shall be fully 
accomplished. Though there be one or two passages in the 
New Testament which seem opposed to this expectation, the 
general tenor of the Gospel appears favourable to it." We have 
here a striking proof, how treacherous an ally a natural theolo- 
gian may prove to the cause which he attempts to serve. One 
text, out of about fifty, may here be quoted in refutation. Re- 
velation xxi. 27. " There shall in no wis? enter into the city 
anything that defileth, * * but only they which are written in 
the Lamb's book of life." We know that some will " not be found 
written" therein : but they shall be cast into the lake of fire. 



182 



ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 



make us wiser and better." Let the writer 
search for these beneficial effects among the thou- 
sands of degraded Africans still kept in slavery 
in the West Indian Islands, or in the southern 
states of the American Union ; or among that 
w retched population whom a mistaken leniency 
has consigned to the most penal of our Australa- 
sian Colonies ; who would, perhaps to a man, 
seek escape from their miseries in suicide, were 
they not previously too hardened to feel the full i 
wretchedness of their living death ; and whose 
moral rule is, literally, " Evil be thou my good." 

Or, nearer home, let him look among the neg- 
lected children of the metropolis, trained for 
theft or prostitution ; and mark the sweet uses of 
adversity among the squalid troop whom their 
parents' poverty or dissipation has reduced, in 
our manufacturing districts, to the condition of 
living machines. Or let him show how a man 
is rendered wiser and better by being rendered 
idiotic by a sudden fright, or insane from cold 
and want — or from inheriting, through the ine- 
briety of his parents, a feeble and irritable brain. 

These, it may be admitted, are extreme, though 
most of them are far from rare, instances — of 
evils, physical or moral, arising from the consti- 
tution of this fallen world ; and resulting in no 
moral good whatever, generally in positive moral 
degradation. And they show us where to look 
for a far more numerous, though less remarkable 
class of evils, arising rather from the absence of 
some of those conditions requisite to the perfect- 



ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 



183 



ing of the moral and intellectual character, than 
to any positively prejudicial influence. To select 
one case ; that of a youth of naturally good dis- 
positions, whose moral feelings are warped and 
perverted by the maxims of an ignorant parent. 
Here is an evil done, as evidently as if that 
parent were, through ignorance, to feed him on 
unwholesome diet ; an evil for which, humanly 
speaking, no remedy whatever is provided ; but 
which must be, to the close of that child's exist- 
ence, a thing to be deplored. 

It is impossible to reconcile with facts like 
these, the supposition that all evils, and especially 
that last evil, death, are intended for the future 
benefit of the sufferer, and promise to mankind a 
state of happiness beyond the grave. If, from 
such facts, we are to form any conjecture res- 
pecting the future condition of man, our conjec- 
ture must be of precisely the opposite character. 
Men are born into this world corrupt and igno- 
rant. They grow up amidst a society more pol- 
luted and consequently in greater darkness than 
they are themselves. They partake of the com- 
mon plague, and in their turn communicate it to 
others. And though, humanly speaking, it be a 
moral certainty — and we have here no higher 
source of knowledge to look to — a certainty that 
they will not, cannot escape the contagion, yet 
the hand of retributive justice is not stayed, but 
they suffer, acutely suffer, through the whole of 
life, the misery and pain which the laws of the 
Moral Governor have attached to moral depra- 



184 



ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 



vity. Hateful in its nature, deadly in its effects, 
is the moral pollution around them : yet is no 
hand stretched forth from heaven to shield them 
or withdraw them from its influence ; but the 
same judgment overtakes both them and the 
authors of their misery.* If then there be an 
hereafter, arguing from analogy we can only 
expect that those who have in this world received 
the most deadly injuries, namely, moral pollutions, 
will suffer most, will be punished most, in that 
which is to come. " The theology of nature," 
says Dr. Chalmers, " emits and audibly emits, a 
note of terror ; but in vain do we listen for one 
authentic word of comfort from any of its oracles." 

But Dr. Chalmers, influenced probably by a 
natural aversion to dwelling only on the darker 
view of things, has, with apparent inconsistency, 
advocated in another place a bolder opinion ; — 
maintaining that, although no sound argument 
for the immortality of man can be based upon the 
(supposed) intentions of his Creator, so long as 
we give to that Creator the attribute of benevo- 
lence only, without admitting also the attribute 
of righteousness, yet " we might incorporate them 
together into the solid groundwork of a solid rea- 
soning." * * * " It might not resolve," he says, 

* When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness 
and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he 
shall die ; because thou hast not given him warning, he shall 
die in his sin; — but his blood will I require at thy hand." 
Ezekiel iii. 20. 



OX THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 



185 



" but it would alleviate the mystery of things could 
we, within the sphere of actual observation, col- 
lect notices not merely of a God who rejoiced in 
the physical happiness of his creatures, but of a 
God who had respect unto their virtue." And 
we may gather from the phenomena of human 
life, that " physical enjoyments and sufferings 
are mainly resolvable into moral causes, — inso- 
much that in the vast majority of cases, the devia- 
tion from happiness can be traced to an anterior 
deviation from virtue." * * * " Now what is the 
legitimate argument for the character of God, 
from the existence of misery thus originated? 
TTretchedness, of itself, were fitted to cast an 
uncertainty, even a suspicion, on the benevolence 
of God. But wretchedness as the result of wick- 
edness * * * tells us that however much the 
Deity may love the happiness of His creatures, 
He loves their virtue more. Instead of extin- 
guishing the evidence of one perfection, it may 
leave this evidence entire, and bring out into 
open manifestation another perfection of the 
Godhead." If indeed in this world there were 
no exceptions to the rule of universal happiness, 
except when justice evidently required the inflic- 
tion of pain, we should possess that open manifes- 
tation of the Divine perfections, which all who look 
into the theology of nature must desire to find there. 
But it is not in this world permitted us to behold 
such an unclouded display of the glories of the 
Godhead ; not even in this world as made known 
to us by Revelation. The Creator has not yet 



186 ON THE ARGUMENTS FOUNDED 

made an end of the mystery of iniquity ; — here- 
after He will, it is promised, " take unto himself 
His great power and reign." Now He permits 
his creatures to continue in a condition, often as 
unfavourable to their virtue, as to their happiness : 
a condition in which moral ruin seems to be 
inevitably their lot. It in no respect alleviates 
the mystery of this, that we are able to trace 
present evil to past evil. If the evil which each 
man is permitted to do were to terminate in 
himself, being the subject of an account only 
between him and his Maker, it would be less sur- 
prising that man should be now permitted to sin ; 
and the hypothesis of a future state of punishment 
would undoubtedly remove much of the difficulty. 
But observation teaches us that evil, to the mis- 
fortune of our race, does not so terminate ; but 
its mischief is often permitted to spread beyond 
all calculation, in every direction invading the 
harmony of that system — now, alas ! no longer 
to be found on earth — in which we can imagine 
that a God of perfect justice and benevolence 
would take delight. One or a few men have 
power to render many as morally corrupt as them- 
selves ; and Revelation, far from alleviating the 
mystery of this, declares that they have moreover 
power to bring their victims into as great a con- 
demnation as their own. Happily for mankind 
the same Revelation discloses a way of escape 
from the power of evil ; and vindicates the per- 
fection of the Divine attributes, by disclosing to 
us a higher and a future world, widely different 



ON THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL. 



187 



from this, and revealing to us the hand of a Most 
Holy and Mighty Spirit, whose beneficent agency 
ever was, and ever must be, hidden from the eye 
of Natural Reason. But the evils, in their great 
amount, remain unexplained. Many will be 
ruined for ever, though He wills not that any 
should perish. Christians believe in the good- 
will of God, notwithstanding the mystery of 
evil. 

But the heathen philosopher never found, nor 
can the modern natural theologian find, any other 
explanation, than that the whole race of mankind 
has fallen under the Divine displeasure, under 
which every soul of man is suffering more or less, 
and by which those who seem, contrary to the 
usual administration of the world, to have escaped 
here, will be overtaken hereafter. 

This is indeed a gloomy view ; and far dif- 
ferent from that in which many natural theologians 
of recent times have indulged themselves : but it 
is far more consonant with the notions found to 
prevail in the heathen world, among conscientious 
men, and ignorant of Christianity ; while, as far 
as it has any force, it confirms as strongly as any 
argument of a contrary tendency, that Revelation 
which, while it has made known the good tidings 
of mercy and immortality, by means of a most 
wonderful Divine intervention, has also declared 
the wrath of God upon all unrighteousness of 
men. 



188 



CHAPTER IV. 

ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY, FROM THE GREAT- 
NESS OF HUMAN DESIRES. 

AN argument for the immortality of the soul, 
more plausible and hopeful than that which 
has been just treated of, and founded upon a very 
different view of some of the evils which attend 
humanity, may be here considered. Hitherto, 
the depravity residing within the heart of man, 
the wide extent of misery which he is often per- 
mitted to spread around him, and particularly 
the moral injury which he is suffered to work in 
the hearts of others, have forbidden us to look 
forward beyond the grave, except with mere hope- 
lessness, or with a trembling fear. But man, it 
is argued, has also, in the midst of his darkness 
and degradation, gleams of light as if from ano- 
ther sphere; conceptions of happiness which 
belong rather to heaven than to earth : and 
which the Creator would not have implanted 
within him, unless with a prospective view to a 
higher and nobler existence. For the analogy of 
the rest of animated nature shows, it is observed, 
that nothing is waste and meaningless ; there is 
no contrivance without a definite purpose, no 
appetite without a corresponding object, no desire 
without a counterpart gratification. But man, it 



GREATNESS OF HUMAN DESIRES. 189 

is said, if there be not another world, would con- 
stitute a glaring exception to this rule of adapta- 
tion and commensurateness. " He feels," says 
Dr. Chalmers, " an interminable longing after 
nobler and higher things ; which nought but im- 
mortality and the greatness of immortality can 
satiate ; * * * to all which there is nothing like 
among the inferior animals, among whom there is 
a certain squareness of adjustment between each 
desire and its correspondent gratification." 

The fish that populate the waters have no desire 
to penetrate into the regions of air, and the sea- 
birds that soar above seek not to explore the 
secrets of the ocean depths. Each creature en- 
joying itself after its kind is satisfied with its 
place and with the food and the society provided 
for it therein ; and all, when their bodily wants are 
satisfied, secure even when in the neighbourhood 
of danger, and undismayed by imaginations of 
death, are for the most part perfectly content. 
And for their bodily wants a benignant nature 
provides so fully, that it would be as useless for 
them, as it is beyond their power, to " take 
thought for the morrow." Or if it should be 
necessary to make provision against a more in- 
clement season, or for the birth and nurture of 
young, nature herself becomes their instructor, 
and under her unerring guidance they act, with- 
out hesitation or care, in such manner as fully to 
attain those ends, which are sufficient for the 
welfare of the race. Man alone is afflicted with 
desires which he has not the requisite powers, or 



190 



ARGUMENT FROM THE 



the appropriate opportunities for satisfying ; he 
alone is discontented with his lot, desiring to 
explore regions beyond his reach, perplexed by 
difficulties which he has capacity enough to com- 
prehend and feel, but not enough to resolve, 
turning from all which earth can offer in search 
of some higher and better happiness. In the 
words of Dr. Chalmers, " man alone labours under 
the discomfort of an incongruity between his cir- 
cumstances and his powers ; and unless there be 
new circumstances awaiting him in a more ad- 
vanced state of being, he, the noblest of nature's 
products here below, would turn out to be the 
greatest of her failures." 

Dr. Chalmers has even called this argument a 
" proof for the immortality of the soul." Now 
such an argument, at least when taken in its 
most general form, and pushed to its furthest 
extent, would go to render probable the future 
existence of the whole human race, under circum- 
stances such as to promote the gradual but un- 
ceasing advancement of every individual in know- 
ledge, virtue, and happiness. But the righteous- 
ness of God, as we know from Revelation, will 
not be thus evaded, nor death thus easily disarmed 
of its sting : and it is strange that so very flat- 
tering a view of the supposed destinies of our 
race, as made known by mere natural theology, 
should be entertained by one, who can hear in 
the oracles of nature 1 6 no word of comfort," but 
only a a note of terror ;" and who declares, that 
natural theology is " wholly unable to disperse 



GREATNESS OF HUMAN DESIRES. 191 



the obscurity, which rests on the hopes and the 
destiny of our species." * 

In truth, this argument is usually stated in far 
too general terms, being made to extend to a 
great number of points of difference between man 
and the inferior animals of such a kind that we 
cannot reasonably expect a completion of the 
analogy by any future dispensation : while the 
only difference on which, if it be actually found 
to exist, such an expectation can be founded, has 
been generally but little regarded. 

It seems to be obvious enough, — and it mate- 
rially diminishes the force of the argument — that 
it is not every desire which the heart of man can 
form, and for which, in his present circumstances, 
he finds none, or only a partial gratification, 
which can be gratified in another world consis- 
tently with the righteousness of God. There is 
an ambition, for instance, a love of unjust supre- 
macy, which, had it commensurate power, would 
render all men the slaves or the victims of its 
tyrannous will, which would fain " cast abroad 
the rage of its wrath, and behold every one that 
is proud and abase him;" — a spirit which, en- 
during fellowship with none, if the whole earth 
were subjected to its sway, would covet a larger 
and more absolute dominion still. And there is 
a desire of forbidden knowledge and power over 



* Bridgewater Treatise. The last chapter : and one of the 
most valuable in the whole work. 



192 



ARGUMENT FROM THE 



the material and the spiritual world, which would 
intrude into all secrets, not merely using, but 
controlling and reversing the laws of nature, and 
seeking by mysterious rites to compel beings of 
superhuman power to become its oracles and its 
servants. All such desires are unlawful now, 
and assuredly will never be gratified. Plainly, 
then, it is not a mere incongruity or inadequacy 
of this present world to meet all the large and 
ambitious desires of man, which can furnish an 
argument for another state. Therefore, under 
the government of a God of righteousness, no 
future state can be supposed, which would alto- 
gether complete the analogy between man and 
the rest of the animated creation. For every 
desire of the lower animals, as it has been ob- 
served, there is a counterpart object, for every 
faculty there is, in general, ample room and op- 
portunity for exercise of commensurate extent. 
But for the doctrine of immortality, it is said, man 
would be an exception to this law. But even 
admitting the doctrine, man continues to be an 
exception to the law. There are many whose 
thoughts are wedded to this world, who by means 
of the faculty of imagination, or through the in- 
quisitiveness implanted in man, fasten their wishes 
upon objects which they can never attain in this 
world, — just as if the fish were to desire to fly, 
or the bird to swim, — and which it cannot be 
supposed they will attain after death. There are 
incongruities between man and his present cir- 



GREATNESS OF HUMAN DESIRES. 



193 



cunistances, which no new circumstances, we 
may be assured, will ever remove. 

"But all those desires," it may be objected, 
" which have been just alluded to, properly belong 
to the earth. There is a general congruitv be- 
tween them and earthly things ; and though they 
do not, and perhaps cannot, always meet their 
full gratification here, yet such a world as this is 
the only kind of world which can afford them any 
appropriate theatre. But it is otherwise with the 
desire of immortality." 

Surely the mere desire of eternal felicity can- 
not demand, as of right, its infinite gratification. 
It may be entertained as well by the bad, as by 
the good. But strictly speaking, the human 
mind, being finite, is incapable of desiring an 
infinite object, such as eternal happiness. The 
desire of the mind is, to obtain and never lose 
again; to have continually a present, not an in- 
finite enjoyment. There are vicious minds, of 
transcendent powers, and keen susceptibilities, 
which shrink with horror from the idea of anni- 
hilation, and which long to expatiate for ever in 
scenes of adventurous delight, with a passion less 
pure, but not less intense, than that of the most 
devout adorer of the God of nature, who hopes 
hereafter to find the Being searched for here in 
vain. But such minds will not be gratified. It 
is not, therefore, merely because desires are too 
large for this earth, that we are entitled to expect 
they will receive their counterpart in an eternal 
world. 

o 



194 



ARGUMENT FROM THE 



It is the moral quality of the object desired 
which alone can furnish a solid ground of hope. 
It is extravagant to speak of desires which "nought 
but immortality and the greatness of immortality 
can satiate," as in themselves more noble than 
others, even if such desires be possible. For 
nothing is desirable for ever which is not also 
desirable for a limited time. Eternity is not in 
itself an object of human wishes, — a man might 
as well be said to desire an hour as to desire 
eternity, — but something which we conceive can- 
not but be desirable at every instant of time. The 
wish for immortality is merely the wish to live 
and never die. But unless our desire be for a 
life such as cannot be lived upon earth, and, 
moreover, a life consisting in the enjoyment of 
things pure and good, in which a pure and good 
God can be pleased, we cannot hope, on the 
ground of any analogy, that our desire will be 
gratified. 

If it were to be found that the occupants of the 
sea had in general a desire to fly, fancied they 
should find more pleasure in the air, and had a 
dread of annihilation, we should have some sort 
of argument for expecting for them a future state. 
But if it were known that these creatures were cor- 
rupt and vicious, and did in the vast majority of 
instances desire things and lead lives displeasing 
to their Creator, we should pause to enquire into 
the moral quality of the aerial life they desired, 
and decide by reference to that only. It is be- 



GREATNESS OF HUMAN DESIRES. 195 

cause desires are too good, not because they are 
too great, for this earth, that we may hope for 
their future gratification. 

The life desired must be such as cannot be 
lived on earth. For if it could be passed on 
earth, even in a few instances, the analogy of 
nature would not entitle us to expect more. For 
as far as we can see, the lives passed on earth by 
the inferior creatures are all pleasing to the Cre- 
ator, yet in many instances the individual does 
not attain to the gratification of the desires which 
belong to his kind. Many of them die young : 
but we do not expect they will be restored to life ; 
nor do we expect that those which are most fully 
formed for the enjoyments destined for them by 
their Maker, will live for ever. But here, how- 
ever, in the case of man, a new element enters 
into the moral calculation, — that dread of anni- 
hilation which has been just alluded to. Would 
the Deity destroy a creature capable not merely 
of enjoying a pure happiness, and leading a good 
life, but also capable of a hope that it would con- 
tinue for ever ? Does it not seem contrary to His 
perfect benevolence that such a hope should be 
frustrated ? The evil which prevails in the world, 
the incomprehensibility of the moral system of 
which we form part, may well throw some doubt 
upon this : yet may man venture to entertain a 
hope that all impediments to the full gratification 
of virtuous desires will be removed in another 
state ; and virtue will find that happiness which 
we cannot conceive to be perfect, unless accom- 



196 



ARGUMENT FROM THE 



panied with an assurance that it will never be 
taken away. Here, therefore, at length we do 
find, as heathen philosophers have found before, 
some, though but a faint probability, that a future 
life of happiness is reserved for some of the human 
race. 

But is it so very evident that man has in his 
constitution desires incapable of adequate exercise 
upon earthly things, and, moreover, so pure and 
good, as of themselves to claim from the justice 
and benevolence of God, a nobler and larger 
theatre upon which to display themselves ? Be- 
fore entering upon this serious question, it must 
be premised, that the principles in the human 
constitution, which are to yield a promise of im- 
mortality, must become subjects of consciousness 
to the individual, and, moreover, be called into 
some degree of exercise during life on earth. 
Otherwise we are not entitled, according to the 
analogy of the rest of creation, to expect a future 
developement of them in the case of that indi- 
vidual. We have no right to argue in favour of 
an immortality of the whole human race, unless 
the whole race does actually entertain pure and 
good desires, which do not and cannot find 
fulfilment here. We do not expect that an ani- 
mal which dies young, without having tasted the 
chief enjoyments or felt the chief passions of its 
kind, will receive a new existence to effect those 
ends ; although we do expect that the desires 
actually experienced by the species will in general 



GREATNESS OF HUMAN DESIRES. 



197 



be gratified. This limitation is by no means 
strictly observed in the writings of the natural 
theologians ; and yet without it, not only is the 
whole force of their argument impaired, but a 
future life is held out to the hopes of man, upon 
conditions utterly unlike those imposed by that 
Revelation which the argument is intended to 
support. 

Our moral writers, enlightened by Christianity 
too fully to be sensible of the darkness of natural 
religion, and too well convinced of the truth of 
the doctrine of immortality to allow weight to any 
adverse argument, upon whatever principles it 
m?y depend, have confounded the character of 
the natural and unconverted human heart with 
that whose feelings have been chastened, purified, 
and strengthened, by a knowledge of the truth 
and by divine grace ; representing man not as he 
actually is, but as his Maker would desire him to 
be. And they accordingly assert with confidence 
that man does entertain desires so noble and ex- 
cellent, as to entitle him to expect, at the hands 
of a just and benevolent Creator, eternal happi- 
ness. "Man," it is said, — unlike the brutes— 
" refers his existence to a Divine original, — his 
preservation to an Omniscient Providence. He 
delights to contemplate the works of God, and 
longs for a more intimate communion with the 
Author of his existence." Again ; " When we 
reflect that every breath we draw is His ; that in 
Him we live and move and have our being ; that 
all our public blessings, domestic comforts, and 



198 



ARGUMENT FROM THE 



individual enjoyments are the gifts of His muni- 
ficent though invisible hand; our gratitude to 
our Preserver, and unwearied Benefactor is na- 
turally awakened. Reverence, devotion, and 
love, with a profound submission of his weak 
reason to His infinite wisdom, are predominant 
feelings in the bosom of every man who meditates 
on the adorable attributes of his Creator. * * * 
Is it to be believed, that these pious emotions, 
which are the inspiration of the Being who made 
us, and are irresistibly excited by the contempla- 
tion of His works — emotions which constitute 
man's highest happiness, and the supreme dignity 
of his nature, elevating him above every low and 
grovelling passion, fitting him for a more intimate 
communion with his Creator, and associated with 
a desire to love Him with a purer heart, and 
serve Him with a more willing mind — are to be 
buried by death in everlasting annihilation ? Are 
we formed to revere His power, to admire His 
wisdom, to adore His goodness, and to indulge 
in these pious affections with increasing delight, 
through an eternity of ages — are we formed thus, 
and is the flame of devotion kindled within us 
for no other purpose than to be extinguished in 
endless darkness and insensibility ? * * * Have 
we not rather reason to believe, that to inspire a 
grateful, but only momentary, affection for an 
eternal object, is consistent with neither the wis- 
dom nor the goodness of the Deity, and that our 
pious sensibilities are not given to perish for ever 
with the dissolution of the body. * * * If the 



GREATNESS OF HUMAN DESIRES. 199 

soul of man aspires to something more satisfac- 
tory, something more adequate to its conceptions, 
than the present life can yield, another and a 
better state awaits it," 

This is written in a confident tone : but among 
whom are these " pious emotions, elevating above 
every low and grovelling passion," to be found? 
Shall we look for them among the savages of 
Terra del Fuego, or of Van Dieman's Land, who 
in their lusts are more ferocious than the brutes 
themselves, and who can scarcely be roused from 
their torpid inactivity, and sent to hunt the forests 
for prey, by the actual pangs of hunger ? Shall 
we search in the empire of China ? The inhabi- 
tants of the country are numerous ; it includes 
at least a fourth part of the whole population of 
the earth. If certain vices widely prevalent there 
be in a great measure unsuspected in England, 
it is only because they are too gross and abomi- 
nable to be plainly represented to the minds 
which Christianity has civilized. Or shall we 
turn to the followers of Mohammed ? They be- 
lieve in one God; they abjure the worship of 
idols; they profess to abstain from wine. But 
the nature of the Mohammedan paradise is well 
known. Its joys are probably most strongly 
longed for by those who know no higher pleasure 
than the gratification of passions common to the 
lowest of creeping things. Or were these enno- 
bling emotions to be found, generally speaking, 
among the philosophers of ancient Greece or 
Rome? Not among these, certainly, who held 



200 



ARGUMENT FROM THE 



that while the mind was kept in a state of (ima- 
gined) elevation, it mattered not what was done 
with the body. That plague, which through the 
body infects the souls of the whole race of Adam, 
is not to be stayed by a philosophical hypothesis. 
Even they, few as they were in numbers, who hoped 
to obtain future happiness by leading a godlike 
life on earth, trusted only to the inherent qualities 
which they ascribed to the human soul. They 
did not experience any pious affection ; they did 
not look up to one Supreme God, as a friend in 
communion with whom her eafter they would find 
the perfection of joy. 

It is among Christians only that such emotions 
are to be found. But will it be pretended that 
they derive them from the Theology of Nature ? 
If such a pretension cannot be supported, the 
argument is worth absolutely nothing. For it 
matters not, as has been said, that the whole race 
of man, or most of the race, have a certain capa- 
bility of these emotions. The same Creator who 
implanted the capability, placed the creature in 
such circumstances as not to call it into action in 
this world. And the analogy of nature furnishes 
no shadow of reason for the supposition that it 
will, therefore, be called into action in another. 

There are some animals, and the dog is pre- 
eminent among them, which are peculiarly sus- 
ceptible of domestication ; and to all appearance 
lead incomparably happier lives, for the most part, 
when they become the servants or companions of 
man. Are we to suppose that the wild dogs will 



GREATNESS OF HUMAN DESIRES. 201 

be provided with masters after death, because 
they have a susceptibility of enjoyment of a higher 
kind than any which their present circumstances 
admit of? The savage is, in this respect, in exactly 
the same predicament as the wild dog. His 
susceptibilities are completely dormant. Prac- 
tically he is an animal being, and nothing more. 
His thoughts are confined to this world, and he 
is as utterly destitute of all just conceptions of his 
Creator, as are the animals which he destroys for 
food. 

But if we turn to more civilized parts of the 
world, to countries rich in every species of litera- 
ture, where luxury and leisure and mental refine- 
ment are possessed by multitudes, and the great 
truths of the Gospel are openly and continually 
proclaimed, we behold a prospect scarcely more 
encouraging. Let the moralist seriously ask 
himself how many they may be, whose thoughts 
and affections do truly centre in heaven ; whose 
dissatisfaction with the world they live in springs 
from no disappointed earthly desires, but from a 
sense of the ungodliness which so lamentably 
prevails, and a conviction that to depart, and be 
in communion with God, is far better than to have 
all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of 
them. In the majority of instances the suscepti- 
bility for higher and purer pleasures than those 
of earth seems to be given in vain. Men live 
regardless of the God above them, and the futu- 
rity beyond ; imitating outwardly the conduct of 
the virtuous only as far as may be conducive to 



202 



ARGUMENT FROM THE 



their safety, or ease, or success, in this life. Its 
fleeting gratifications are all which their hearts 
desire, and in them verily they have their reward; 
the only reward in store for them. There are 
men who possess natural capacity sufficient for 
the perception of the highest truths ; whose minds 
for a time may be kindled with pure emotions 
and lofty desires ; who learn to say " Lord, Lord," 
and to pray for admission to heaven ; but their 
prayer is choked almost in its utterance by the 
force of lower passions, their " affection for an 
eternal object" is momentary only ; their own 
base nature is the God they serve, and " their 
end will be — destruction." 

It is truly wonderful that any mind imbued 
with the spirit of Christianity, should imagine 
that the mere ability of the human mind to dis- 
cover or to perform things in themselves neither 
virtuous nor vicious, — which display no moral 
excellence, but merely power of intellect, — affords 
a presumption of an intention in the Deity to 
perpetuate human existence. " The sublime 
attainments," says Dr. Thomas Brown, " which 
man has been capable of making in science, and 
the wonders of his own creative art in that mag- 
nificent scene to which he has known how to give 
new magnificence, have been considered by many 
as themselves proofs of the immortality of a being 
so richly endowed. When we view him, indeed, 
comprehending in his single conception the events 
of ages which have preceded him, and, not con- 



GREATNESS OF HUMAN DESIRES. 203 

tent with the past, anticipating events that are to 
begin only in ages as remote in futurity as the 
origin of the universe is in the past, measuring 
the distance of the remotest planets, and naming 
in what year of other centuries the nations that 
are now gazing with astonishment on some comet 
are to gaze on it in its return, it is scarcely pos- 
sible for us to believe that a mind which seems 
equally capacious of what is infinite in space and 
time should be only a creature whose brief exist- 
ence is measurable by a few points of space and 
a few moments of eternity. 

Look down on earth, What seest thou ? Wondrous things, 

Terrestrial wonders that eclipse the skies. 

What lengths of laboured lands ! What lorded seas ; 

Lorded by man for pleasure, wealth, or war. 

Seas, winds, and planets, into service brought 

His art acknowledge, and promote his ends. 

* * * * * * 

* * * Measured are the skies, — ■ 
Stars are detected in their deep recess,— 
Creation widens, vanquished Nature yields ; 
Her secrets are extorted. Art prevails. 
What monuments of genius, spirit, power ! 

And now, if justly raptured at this scene 
Whose glories render heaven superfluous, say 
Whose footsteps these ? Immortals have been here ; 
Could less than souls immortal this have done ! * 

" These glorious footsteps," continues Dr. 
Brown, " are indeed the footsteps of immortals ! 
Yet it is not the mere splendour of the works 



* Young's Night Thoughts. 



204 



ARGUMENT FROM THE 



themselves, * * that seems directly to indicate 
the immortality of their authors. * * * It is by 
considering the relations of a mind capable of 
these to the Being who has endowed it with such 
capacities, and who is able to perpetuate or 
enlarge the capacities which he has given, that 
we discover in the excellence we admire, not a 
proof indeed, but a presumption of immortality. 
* * That God has formed mankind for progres- 
sive improvement is manifest from those suscepti- 
bilities of progress which are visible in the attain- 
ments of every individual mind ; and still more in 
the wider contrast which the splendid results of 
science in whole nations, that may be considered 
almost as nations of philosophers, now exhibit, 
when we think at the same time of the rude arts 
of the savage, in his hut or in the earlier cave, 
in which he seemed almost of the same race with 
the wild animal with which he had struggled for 
his home. But if God love the progress of man- 
kind, he loves the progress of the individuals of 
mankind ; for mankind is but another name for 
these multitudes of individuals ; and if he love 
the progress of the observers and reasoners whom 
he has formed with so beautiful an arrangement 
of faculties, capable of adding attainment to attain- 
ment in continual progress, is it possible for us 
to conceive that when the mind has made an 
advance which would render all future acquisi- 
tions, even on earth, proportionately far more 
easy, the very excellence of past attainments 
should seem a reason for suspending the progress 



GREATNESS OF HUMAN DESIRES. 205 

altogether, and that He who could have no other 
wish than the happiness and general excellence 
of man, in forming him what he is, should destroy 
his own gracious work merely because man, if 
permitted to continue longer in being, would be 
more happy and excellent."* 

The general testimony of mankind declares 
however, that the majority of those who have by 
their discoveries or inventions promoted the civi- 
lization and increased the personal comfort and 
security of their race, have not been themselves 
in possession of any true happiness, or of that 
moral excellence in which a God of perfect 
righteousness can be well pleased. We must 
not look for examples among those philosophers 
whom Christianity has taught to form a due 
estimate of worldly things, and who regard the 
promotion of virtue and the knowledge of the 
Deity as the grand ultimate ends to which all 
their scientific efforts are to be directed. Ex- 
cluding these, it is found, that the instruments 
chosen to carry on, by a gradual progression, the 
mighty purposes of the Divine administration are 
for the most part poor, mean, and insignificant 
in themselves. The discoveries of the astronomer 
may indeed strike us with wonder, and to a reli- 
gious mind suggest many noble and elevating 
thoughts, but surely the power of calculation by 
which they are made is not in itself so excellent 
as to merit a life of perpetual happiness. Nor 



* Brown on the Mind. 



Lecture xevi. 



206 



ARGUMENT FROM THE 



are the immediate ends to which astronomical 
knowledge is applied, and to which the Deity 
unquestionably intended that it should be applied, 
ends of any moral excellence. Its chief use is in 
navigation. And the Creator undoubtedly in- 
tended that when the several nations of the earth 
increased in numbers and civilization, the various 
fruits of the earth or of human industry should 
be mutually interchanged ; that so the comforts 
of the human family should be increased, and 
community of interests should secure political 
tranquillity, and true knowledge should be widely 
spread among men who had ability and opportu- 
nity of receiving it. But the merchant by whom 
this commerce is carried on, may be of a charac- 
ter mean, sordid, contemptible, iniquitous ; and 
the sailors who work the vessels may be brutal 
and cruel, detained from the commission of the 
most atrocious crimes, as every master of a mer- 
chant ship well knows is too often the case, only 
by want of opportunity or by fear ; and the ma- 
thematician whose ingenuity has facilitated their 
navigation may have been induced to exert it 
only by the desire of worldly distinction, or by 
finding in that exercise a gratification of intellect 
highly analogous to and closely resembling that 
which can be afforded by a game of chess. 

" But if God love the progress of mankind, he 
loves the progress of the different individuals of 
mankind ; for mankind is but another name for 
the multitudes of individuals." This would be 
true, if the progress of the individuals and that 



GREATNESS OF HUMAN DESIRES. 207 

of the race were properly the same ; but they who 
really benefit by the general progress, making 
those advances in true wisdom which alone can 
be pleasing to the moral Governor of the world, 
form but a few among the multitude. 

The general history of the world, as well the 
common as the sacred history, attests numerous 
facts which enable us to carry this observation 
even further : and shows that the human instru- 
ments by whom those Divine purposes are exe- 
cuted, which ultimately tend to the promotion of 
virtue, are often not only worthless, as being 
mere instruments, but must be, in the view of 
the righteous Deity, absolutely vile and hateful. 
Thus, to choose one instance, it was the criminal 
ambition of Rome, the desire to possess new 
countries from which to extort wealth, or to carry 
off men as slaves, that led to the re-introduction 
of Christianity into this island. It is not impro- 
bable that some even of the present generation 
may be reaping the fruits of that early communi- 
cation of the truth, and making those advances 
in virtue which may be favourably regarded by 
the Deity. But though God love the progress 
of these individuals, we cannot suppose that He 
will therefore by any means overlook the guilt of 
the perpetrators of the acts of rapine and tyranny, 
who were among the first instruments by whom 
this progress was originated. 

Christianity teaches us to form a far different 
estimate of the mental achievements of mankind. 
It bids us regard the whole history of the heathen 



208 



ARGUMENT FROM THE 



world, and the whole profane history of the 
Christian world, as subordinate to the progress 
of Divine truths ; either by outwardly facilitating 
their dissemination and growth in the hearts of 
men, or by trying and strengthening faith through 
opposition ; just as plants exposed to the action 
of powerful winds are either laid prostrate under 
the continued action, or acquire new tenacity and 
stubbornness of root and stem. Every invention 
and desire, every work of taste or imagination, 
of ingenuity or industry that does not spring from 
a religious source, and is not formed under the 
guidance of that Mighty Spirit which invisibly 
influences human hearts, is worthless and tempo- 
rary, deserving no perpetuity either in respect to 
the excellence of the natural capacity in which 
it took its rise, or to the end for which it was 
calculated. Solomon in all his glory was not 
arrayed like the lilies of the field, yet after lasting 
for a short season, they are suffered to wither and 
die. And so the generations of men spring up 
successively, and one after another go down into 
the dust, — and their knowledge is buried with 
them. 

Or if their knowledge survives, it is but in the 
same manner as they themselves survive, not 
residing still in the minds of the original posses- 
sors, but being received from them by a younger 
generation, even as the life of the parents is con- 
tinued in that of their children. 

And it seems that this sort of perpetuity is 
sufficient for the Divine purposes. If the fairest 



GREATNESS OF HUMAN DESIRES. 209 



and loveliest of God's works in the inanimate or 
the brute creation are all mortal, the death of the 
individuals being of no moment whatever, so long 
as the species remains extant, we may well believe 
that all the energies of the human mind, wonder- 
ful as they are, and important as may be the 
ulterior purposes to be effected by those means, 
are subject to the same law, being continually 
reproduced in the species, but, as regards the seve- 
ral creatures in whom they flourished, utterly 

PERISHING. 



CHAPTER V. 

ON THE ARGUMENT FROM THE PERFECTIBILITY 
OF THE SPECIES. 

THOUGH the human family passes away, 
generation by generation, its numbers con- 
tinue on the increase ; as the waves of a flowing 
tide roll towards the shore, and on reaching it 
appear to be destroyed, while yet the volume of 
waters is not diminished, but gradually gains 
upon the land. And so of the knowledge pos- 
sessed by each generation but little is dissipated 
and lost ; the greater portion is re-appropriated, 
and serves to promote the general advance. To 
such as are willing to indulge their imagination 
upon this topic, it cannot be otherwise than 
delightful to look forward to a period when moral 
and natural philosophy shall have completed 

p 



210 



ARGUMENT FROM THE 



their discoveries, and shall be sufficiently under- 
stood by all men ; — when in every country there 
shall exist a more perfect and stable form of 
government than any yet known ; when intellec- 
tual refinement and liberal learning shall be 
every where diffused ; when the languages, or 
the language, of mankind shall become a more 
complete instrument, uniting the excellences of 
all preceding tongues ; when intercourse of every 
kind, commercial, or epistolary, or personal, 
between the remotest territories, shall be rapid 
and easy ; when there shall be scarcely any sick- 
ness or disease prior to senile decay ; and when 
a full command over all natural resources, and a 
universal willingness to share every burden upon 
the community and to supply the wants of others, 
shall have banished all poverty and severity of 
labour from the world of humanity. There is 
something alluring in such a view, which has 
often exercised a powerful fascination over ardent 
minds, and has led to efforts generous indeed, 
but for the most part as vain as they are generous. 
We can discern but imperfectly the future terres- 
trial destinies of man, even after having been 
instructed by the Scriptures, and having wit- 
nessed on a large scale, and through many cen- 
turies, their gradually ameliorating influence. But 
yet we may perhaps venture to hope that civili- 
zation and Christian education will extend their 
peaceful conquests, and triumph in the end, and 
lay their light yoke upon all nations.* 



* Yet, as has been before observed, while the present con- 



PERFECTIBILITY OF THE SPECIES. 211 

Such an ultimate production of good, by means 
of the natural and moral agencies now in cooper- 
ation, would somewhat lessen the mystery of evil, 
and more fully vindicate the perfection of the 
goodness and justice of the Deity. But at the 
same time, if we have any reason to look forward 
to such a consummation, we are therefore bidden 
to confine our prospect and to limit our hopes to 
this present world and to future generations of 
men. For it would surely be too much to expect 
a twofold remedy, without any warrant from 
Scripture to support it ; we must not look both 
to another world, and to a future condition of 
the present, for compensations or alleviations of 
existing evils. Without any warrant from Scrip- 
ture ; — for Scripture does not declare the doc- 
trine of compensation, nor represent the future 
life as remedial. 

" Gradation," it has been argued, " seems to 
be a general law of nature. This fact furnishes 
some ground to believe that this is only the 
beginning of our existence. A state of being 
imperfect and unsatisfactory, as introductory to 
a better, is in perfect accordance with the whole 
economy of our system. * * * Nothing is pro- 
duced instantaneously in its perfect state. Every 
transition, with few exceptions, proceeds by slow 
and almost imperceptible degrees. Plants spring 
from seeds and gradually proceed to maturity. 



stitution of the earth endures, good and evil must contend. 
And for scriptural arguments on the unfavourable side, see 
Appendix. 



212 



ARGUMENT FROM THE 



Animals, by a similar progression, pass through 
different stages before they attain perfection. * * 
No part of the Divine plan, in the economy of 
the universe, is perfected at once. This fact 
seems to furnish a presumption that the whole 
system as now exhibited is only the commence- 
ment of a scheme formed in the Eternal Mind, 
maturing by degrees under his direction, and 
advancing by a gradual extension of knowledge 
and virtue, until its consummation shall be accom- 
plished in the ultimate happiness of man. It is 
true that it is equally a law of nature that perfec- 
tion, when attained, shall be succeeded by decay 
and dissolution. But if we find that every par- 
ticle of living matter dies only to live again in 
some other form, why should we apprehend that 
what constitutes us thinking and intelligent beings, 
to whose purposes matter, unless subservient, is 
utterly valueless, shall everlastingly perish? If 
what is in itself impercipient and void of thought 
is indestructible, we have reason to hope that the 
thinking substance, which is of infinitely greater 
worth, will be imperishable." 

The analogy of the rest of nature, as just above 
represented, does not lead to any such conclusion. 
Organization perishes, though more excellent 
than mere matter ; vegetable life, and the prin- 
ciple of growth and assimilation in animals, 
which are infinitely more wonderful than organi- 
zation, perish in like manner — and that not by 
dissolution, but by annihilation ; — and so likewise 
perishes the animal power of sensation, to re- 



PEllFECTIBI LITY OF THE SPECIES. 213 

appear again in other forms. According to this 
analogy, the perpetual revival of life and thought, 
of knowledge and feelings, in successive minds, 
is all that we are to expect. And if, as is un- 
questionably true to a great extent, this transfer- 
ence of thought be accompanied by a continual 
growth and progress, — an advance apparently 
towards some destined perfection, we are forbid- 
den by the analogy to look for progress in another 
quarter ; but are taught to regard the progress 
of individual minds as subservient only to the 
improvement of the general stock, or floating 
capital as it were, of thought. 

On the supposition that such a future state of 
this world as has been here contemplated, were 
to be at length realized, there is just room for 
hope that creatures so perfectly fulfilling their 
Creator's will, and fulfilling it, as we may imagine, 
not blindly, but because it was His will, would 
become individual objects of the Divine regard, 
and being no longer required to make way for a 
race more excellent than themselves, would, by 
his especial favour, and some new exertion of His 
almighty power, become corporeally fit for im- 
mortality. Yet, in some degree, the analogy of 
nature in one respect discountenances even this 
view. For " His mercy is over all his works 
yet the lilies of the field perish, to give birth to 
other creatures, not more perfect or more lovely. 

And it must be observed, discouraging and un- 
welcome though the observation may be, that if we 



214 



ARGUMENT FROM THE 



should do no more than plainly disclose a general 
tendency of the species towards perfection, with- 
out a just expectation that they can ever reach 
it, this would be enough to show the apparent 
intentions of the Deity, and forbid our looking 
for any different method of remedying the evils 
of this present world. For absolute perfection is 
nowhere to be found in any of the departments of 
creation. Not even in those which we believe to 
be fleeting and temporary : and which must there- 
fore attain their perfection now, or never attain 
it at all. It is not to the purpose here, to argue 
that we do not fully comprehend the intentions 
of a structure, or contrivance ; — that if we knew 
the whole counsel of God, every anomaly and all 
apparent imperfection would disappear. It may 
be very true, for example, that the subjection of 
the animal creation to various bodily pains, and 
the occasional existence of individual creatures 
whose lives from some accident are one continual 
suffering, brief or protracted, is reconcilable to 
some higher law than any known to us, or per- 
haps than any which we can comprehend. This 
may be true : yet still the evils, or apparent evils, 
exist, and we have not the slightest reason to 
suppose that while the earth endures they will 
ever cease to exist, or that, on their account, a 
new world will hereafter be established. We 
can only infer from such facts, that the supposed 
apparent failure of the human race, to reach that 
ultimate perfection towards which there is an 
evident tendency, — however great be the con- 



PERFECTIBILITY OF THE SPECIES. 2J5 

trary tendencies — is reconcilable to some higher 
law than any known to us, or perhaps than any 
which we can comprehend. 

To adopt an illustration from Lord Brougham.* 
" The problem has been solved by mathemati- 
cians, Sir Isaac Newton having first investigated 
it, of finding the form of a symmetrical solid, or 
solid of revolution, which in moving through a 
fluid shall experience the least possible resistance. 
The figure so found bears a striking resemblance 
to that of a fish. Now suppose a fish were formed 
exactly in this shape, and that some animal en- 
dowed with reason were placed upon a portion 
of its surface, say at the narrow part, where the 
broad portion or end of the moving body was 
opposed, or seemed as if it were opposed to the 
surrounding fluid when the fish moved — the rea- 
soner would at once conclude that the contrivance 
of the fish's form was very inconvenient and in- 
artificial, and that nothing could be much worse 
adapted for easy movement through the waters : 
but if afterwards permitted to view the whole 
body of the fish, what had seemed a defect and 
evil, not only would appear plainly to be none at 
all, but it would be manifest that this seeming 
evil or defect was a part of the most perfect and 
excellent structure, which it was possible even for 
Omnipotence and Omniscience to have adopted." 

Let us make only a slight change in this sup- 
posed case : and place at the front of the head of 



* Dissertations. Vol. II. page 79. 



216 



ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 



the fish an animal not only capable of reasoning 
upon the form of that part of the moving surface 
with which it was acquainted, but also suffering 
some inconvenience from the forcible resistance 
and the rapid motion of the fluid at that part. Such 
an animal would be just in the same predicament, 
it is conceived, as the human race ; it would be 
suffering a certain evil, under conditions appa- 
rently similar to those from which moral evils 
arise in the world of humanity. And a more 
enlarged knowledge could only enable the animal 
to come to the conclusion, — that the evil it suf- 
fered was unavoidable — was reconcilable with 
perfect wisdom, — and would never be re- 
moved. 



CHAPTER VI. 

on the argument from moral derangement. 

" T)Y inspecting a mechanism," observes Dr. 

-U Chalmers,* " we can infer both the original 
design of Him who framed it, and the derange- 
ment it has subsequently undergone ; even as by 
the inspection of a watch we can infer, from the 
place of command which its regulator occupies, 
that it was made for the purpose of moving regu- 



* Bridgewater Treatise. Vol. II. chap. 10. 



MORAL DERANGEMENT. 



217 



larly ; and that, notwithstanding the state of dis- 
repair and aberration into which it may have 
fallen. And so, by the obvious place of moral 
supremacy which is occupied by the Conscience 
of man in his moral system, we can infer that 
virtue was the proper and primary design of his 
creation ; and that, notwithstanding the actual 
prevalence of obviously different principles over 
the habits and history of his life. * * * * It is 
from the native and proper tendency of aught 
which is made, that we conclude as to the mind 
and disposition of the Maker ; and not from the 
actual effect, when that tendency has been ren- 
dered abortive by the extrinsic operation of some 
disturbing force on an else goodly and well going 
mechanism. The original design of the Creator 
may be read in the natural, the universal tendency 
of things ; and surely it speaks strongly both for 
His benevolence and His righteousness, that 
nothing is so fitted to ensure the general happi- 
ness of society as the general virtue of them who 
compose it. And if, instead of this, we behold 
a world ill at ease with its many heart burnings 
and many disquietudes, the fair conclusion is that 
the beneficial tendencies which have been esta- 
blished therein, and which are therefore due to 
the benevolence of God, have been all thwarted 
by the moral perversity of man. The compound 
lesson to be gathered from such a contemplation 
is, that God is the friend of human happiness, but 
the enemy of human vice, — seeing He hath set 



218 



ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 



up an economy in which the former would have 
grown up and prospered universally, had not the. 
latter stepped in and overborne it." 

It is impossible not to suspect that these ob- 
servations, true and just as they are in a great 
degree, rest upon a foundation laid not by mere 
reason, but by the Scriptures ; and form no part 
of the system of natural theology which could 
recommend itself to a mind unaided by Revela- 
tion. For they assume, as an undoubted truth, 
that moral good and evil proceed from entirely 
distinct sources ; that man is not as his Creator 
made him, but is a creature cast down from a 
higher estate. The mechanism is represented 
as deranged, not through any original defect in 
its construction, but through an external violence. 
Such is the doctrine of Scripture : but mere reason 
cannot establish it, though there may be some good 
ground for a conjecture that some such disaster 
has occurred. It is only while the rest of the 
mechanism continues in correct order that the 
moral or the material regulator can duly perform 
its functions. It cannot maintain the action of 
the machine, nor prevent derangement of its 
parts. And if we should be wrong in inferring 
from the presence in a watch of a regulator, cal- 
culated to control the movement for an indefinite 
time, that the watch would continue to move, 
and would remain in order for an indefinite time, 
unless interfered with from without, should we 
not also be wrong in inferring from the presence 
of Conscience in the moral system, that derange- 



MORAL DERANGEMENT. 



219 



ment would never occur therein, except from 
some extrinsic cause ? 

" It were surely far juster," says Dr. Chalmers, 
" in arguing for the Divine character, that we 
founded our interpretation on the happiness which 
man's original constitution is fitted to secure for 
him, than on the misery which he suffers from 
that constitution having been in some way per- 
verted." 

But unless reason can show that the perversion 
has an extrinsic origin, we must take man simply 
as we now find him ; and in arguing for the 
Divine character found our interpretation alike 
upon the happiness and upon the misery which 
spring from the man's present constitution. 

Yet, as was observed in a preceding chapter,* 
if the moral mechanism be still in the hands, and 
liable to the interference of the Maker, we may 
entertain a hope of the future remedy of defects, 
unavoidably resulting from the principles on which 
it was originally framed. 

Assuming then that without a Revelation we 
cannot know whether the moral disorder now 
prevailing existed from the first, or not ; nor 
whether its introduction should be ascribed to an 
extrinsic cause, or to some original imperfection, 
— we have yet some room for an expectation that 
an interference of the Creator may remove it. 
And indeed, if the moral evil exist under the 



* Book II. Chap. I. page 121. 



220 



ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 



condition last mentioned, and be the result of an 
original liability to derangement from internal 
causes, it does not appear that there is less room 
for hope than upon the contrary supposition. It 
does not seem less likely that the Maker should 
restore action to a watch, after its movements 
have been stopped by the rusting* of some of the 
wheels, or by the unwinding of the main-spring, 
than after it has been injured by some force from 
without. Nor is this rendered more improbable, 
if we were to know that the Maker could, had he 
chosen, have constructed the machine so as to be 
capable of perpetual motion, without suffering at 
all from the imperfection of materials ; and could 
have prevented, had he seen fit, any external 
injury. 

To whatever cause we ascribe the moral de- 
rangement, we are compelled to draw from it a 
melancholy conclusion. " There is a state which 
the mind of man may attain, in which there is 
such a disruption of its moral harmony, that no 
power appears in the mind itself capable of re- 
storing it to a healthy condition. This important 
fact in the philosophy of human nature has been 
already recognised, from the earliest ages, on the 
mere principles of human science. It is distinctly 
stated by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics, 
where he draws a striking comparison between a 
man who being first misled by sophistical reason- 
ings has gone into a life of voluptuousness under 
an impression that he was doing no wrong, — and 



MORAL DERANGEMENT. 



221 



one who has followed the same course in oppo- 
sition to his own moral convictions. The former 
he contends might be reclaimed by argument; 
the latter he considers as incurable. In such a 
state of mind therefore it follows by an induction 
which cannot be controverted, either that the 
evil is irremediable and hopeless, or that we 
must look for a power from without the mind 
which may afford an adequate remedy. We are 
thus led to perceive the adaptation and the pro- 
bability of the provisions of Christianity, where 
an influence is indeed disclosed to us, capable of 
restoring the harmony which has been lost, and 
raising man anew to his place as a moral being. 
We cannot hesitate to believe that the power, 
who framed the wondrous fabric, may thus hold 
intercourse with it, and redeem it from disorder 
and ruin. On the contrary, it accords with the 
highest conceptions we can form of the Deity, 
that he should thus look upon his creatures in 
their hour of need. * * Sound philosophy teaches 
us, that there is a state in which nothing less than 
such a complete transformation can restore the 
man to a healthy moral condition, and that for 
producing it nothing will avail but an influence 
from without the mind ; a might and a power 
from the same Almighty One who originally 
framed it. Philosophy teaches in the clearest 
manner that a portion of mankind require such a 
transformation ; — Christianity informs us that it 
is required by all. When the inductions of science 
and the dictates of Revelation harmonize to this 



222 



ON" THE ARGUMENT FROM 



extent, who shall dare to assert that the latter 
are not truth? Who that places himself in the 
presence of a Being of infinite purity, will say, — 
he requires not such a change ; or that for the 
production of it he requires no agency beyond 
the resources of his own mind ? If none be found 
who is entitled to believe he forms the exception, 
we are forced into the acknowledgment of the 
truth so powerfully impressed upon us in the 
sacred writings, that in the eye of the Almighty 
One, no man in himself is righteous ; — and that 
his own power avails not for restoring him to a 
state of moral purity."* And we are forced 
into the acknowledgment of a further truth : a 
truth of incalculable importance ; and the omis- 
sion of which from many writings on the immor- 
tality of the soul, vitiates all the rest, and tends 
to induce impressions upon the too easily satisfied 
mind of man, directly hostile to the interests of 
practical Christianity — that unless the Deity 
should in His mercy vouchsafe to interfere before 
death, to restore the moral purity of man, we 
are forbidden to hope that He will interfere after 
death, to restore life to man. Such an inter- 
ference, we know from Scripture, was destined 
from the first, has actually been made, is still in 
active operation. Reason can show our need of 
it, but can never prove its existence, nor do more 
than establish a slender, even a desperate hope 
that it might one day be made known. But 



* Abercrombie on the Moral Feelings. Part II. page 132. 



MORAL DERANGEMENT. 223 

they who, upon principles which presuppose no 
knowledge of this, promise man an immortality 
of more perfect existence, are not laying a foun- 
dation upon the true corner stone, are building 
a house upon the sand. " Awake, thou that 
sleepest, and arise from the dead ; and Christ 
shall give thee light," says the warning voice of 
Scripture ; but our too easy moralists and natural 
theologians, not being with Him, are against 
Him ; are lulling the apprehensions of men by 
vain speculations ; and like the Old Serpent are 
instilling into the minds of their too credulous 
hearers, under the disguise of wisdom, and with 
the form of knowledge, the fatal doctrine, that 
man may eat the fruit ; but "he shall not surely 
die." 

The systems of natural religion present at many 
points difficulties, which are insuperable by rea- 
son ; and which Revelation removes, only to 
introduce analogous and sometimes greater diffi- 
culties in their stead. Such a difficulty lies over 
the whole question, in part created by Scripture, 
as to the future condition of the heathen, which 
on account of its relation to this part of our sub- 
ject, has been briefly considered in another place.* 
We never can know how far they who have, com- 
paratively speaking, walked uprightly in this pre- 
sent world, by the light of nature, or with the 
addition of a very imperfect form of Revelation, 



* See Appendix, 



224 ARGUMENT FROM MORAL DERANGEMENT. 

may hereafter be accepted for the sake of Christ. 
But our general view of the condition of the 
heathen must undoubtedly be a gloomy one. 
And, Revelation apart, we are in an analogous 
difficulty. We never can know how far they 
who have fallen but little below the standard of 
moral purity which we, arbitrarily and doubtfully, 
construct and adapt to the condition of humanity, 
may be here aided by their Maker, and hereafter 
restored, and more than restored by Him. We 
may hope for a restoration, — not in consequence 
of any reference to the principles of strict justice, 
but with reference rather to one part of the truth 
which we can discern, the general desire of the 
Deity for the happiness of his creature. 

At this point the author must lay down the 
inquiry ; leaving it to each reader to determine 
or to conjecture for himself, according to the 
disposition of his mind, towards hope or towards 
fear : only reminding him that it appears from 
Scripture, that the truest, if not the most natural 
conclusion to be formed without the aid of Scrip- 
ture, is, that happiness hereafter is to be looked 
for, through some interference first made here ; 
and originating in some entirely unmerited and 
freely given mercy of God. 



BOOK III. 



THE FUTURE STATES AS REVEALED IN 
SCRIPTURE. 

CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

IN the preceding Book, the fundamental truths 
of Natural Religion, — the power, wisdom, 
and goodness of God, and the moral responsibility 
and actual guilt of man, were assumed to furnish 
the only basis for any probable conjectures that 
some future states were reserved for man : and it 
was contended that the aspect of the moral world, 
such as it must appear to one ignorant or re- 
gardless of Revelation, does not completely vin- 
dicate the perfection of the Divine attributes, nor 
sufficiently declare His intentions towards man, 
to establish any solid ground of comfort : that it 
speaks not of remedial love, of intervening mercy, 
of ultimate salvation ; but merely convinces us 
of our own natural helplessness and hopelessness, 
and of our inability to solve even in part the 
fearful mystery of evil, — of depravity, pain, and 
death, — by the help of that doctrine of Divine 
permission, which alone can afford us hope, — 
though not, even then, certainty, — of its ultimate 
removal. But in this Book the authority of 
Revelation is to be called in, to establish on a 

Q 



226 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



firm foundation that great argument, which justi- 
fies the ways of God to men. 

Having in Scripture ample assurance of the 
immortality hitherto so darkly seen, our enquiries 
must respect only the nature and conditions, not 
the probability, of the immortal life. It will 
appear more and more evidently as we proceed, 
that the futurity of which moral reasonings afford 
a dubious hope, and that which revelation makes 
certain, are not one and the same ; that beyond 
the mere fact that there is a life to come, the 
truths declared in Scripture differ in many and 
important particulars from the conjectures of 
human reason ; that the natural state of man is 
more desperate than he has ever been willing to 
believe; that without a "regeneration," which 
philosophy could at the utmost only hope for, 
none can enter into the kingdom of God ; that 
" man has no life in him, except it be given him 
from above ;" and that the immortality which is 
opened to him is fenced off, so to speak, by con- 
ditions far more strictly exclusive than any which 
our moral feelings could lead us to anticipate, 
and such that no physical investigation could 
possibly suggest their existence. 

In such a future world as principles merely 
physical may be supposed to render probable, the 
virtuous and the vicious would equally participate ; 
in such future worlds as our moral feelings may 
lead us to hope for or to dread, those who had 
been virtuous on earth must be supposed to live, 
for an indefinite but probably endless period, in 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



227 



the undisturbed enjoyment of a high degree of 
happiness ; while the vicious would either suffer 
a total annihilation at once, or would first have 
to endure certain temporary punishments pro- 
portioned to their guilt ; or would undergo a 
course of purifying discipline, in order to restore 
them to a state nearly allied and gradually 
approximating to that of those who had led (com- 
paratively) virtuous lives during their sojourn on 
earth, probably their only place of trial and dis- 
cipline. But how widely, utterly different from 
these conjectures are the declarations of Scripture. 
The separation of the virtuous and the vicious 
shall be complete and final, and a state of hap- 
piness shall be conferred, not on all, nor on the 
many, but on the few only who are chosen ; and 
to them alone shall the gift of eternal life be 
given. Not only is all evil moral influence over 
good men to be withdrawn, but — what human 
reason, unaided by tradition, never could have 
anticipated, — the whole human race shall be 
separated into two classes, between whom shall be 
placed a broad and impassable gulf, on the one 
side of which shall be eternal Life in blissful 
communion with the Deity, and on the other 
Death, eternal punishment, everlasting destruc- 
tion from the presence of God. 

It was expedient to observe thus much, in the 
outset, respecting the future states revealed in 
Scripture, in order to show concisely, how reve- 
lation undoes all the little that reason can do ; 



228 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



how different are all the structures which human 
ingenuity can erect upon a moral basis, from the 
true " houses not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens." These heavenly mansions, and the 
blessed condition of their occupants, and the state 
also of those who are excluded therefrom, will 
hereafter furnish matter for much serious inquiry : 
but inasmuch as Scripture also throws much light 
upon the present as well as future nature of man, 
and teaches us that immortal life, though the free 
gift of God to some at the general resurrection, 
must still be in a manner commenced or antici- 
pated by SPIRITUAL LIFE ON EARTH, it will be 

necessary to refer to the inspired pages, in order 
to correct or confirm the conjectures contained 
in the preceding Books ; and to prove further, 
how widely, and with what pernicious tendency, 
those writers have erred, who have deemed that 
they could reach the sublime doctrine of Immor- 
tality by paths searched out and selected by 
human wisdom. There is no other path than 
that which was first trodden by the footsteps of 
the Son of God. He is the way, the truth, and 
the life, no man cometh to the Father but by 
Him. He alone achieved immortality ; He alone 
brought it to light, and published it abroad 
among the nations that walked in darkness. The 
saying of St. Paul, that " Jesus Christ brought life 
and immortality to light through the Gospel," 
is not contradicted by the fact that a resurrection 
unto life was promised in the Jewish Scriptures, 
and commonly believed in by the Jews. For the 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 229 

Gospel of Christ was preached, although ob- 
scurely, before his advent. The Sun of Right- 
eousness dawned before it arose. 

Immortal life was obtained for us by a means, 
a mediation so profoundly mysterious, that even 
angelic intelligence is unable to fathom it, — by no- 
thing less than the death and resurrection of the 
Beloved Son. Yet many who deem themselves 
philosophers enter in upon this sacred ground, 
each proposing, in the stead of Jesus, his own path 
to heaven, his own doctrines instead of the life- 
giving word, his own mode of future existence 
instead of the New Jerusalem. For the immor- 
tality of the soul they trust, not to union with 
Christ, but to the possession of an intelligence 
akin to that of the brutes ; for the resurrection of 
the body they trust, not to the victory of Christ 
over death, to the power of God that raiseth 
the dead, to the quickening Spirit, but to the 
native though latent energy in some undistin- 
guishable particles of the mass of putrefying 
flesh ! They may raise their towers of clay ; they 
may add brick to brick, and course to course, till 
many gaze at them with admiration ; but heaven 
will yet be too high. They have not made Christ 
their foundation. And when the fiery deluge 
breaks forth, along with " the earth and the works 
that are therein," the ruins of their vain industry 
shall be consumed. 

But before we enter upon the main subject, and 
compare with the feeble conjectures of reason 



230 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



what Scripture has revealed concerning the eternal 
state of happiness, serious attention ought to be 
paid to the much controverted question respecting 
the interval between death and the resurrection 
of the body, the event after which men shall be 
put in possession of their eternal life : not only on 
account of its natural priority in order of time, 
but because, little having been expressly declared 
in the New Testament concerning it, there is 
much room left for the fond imaginations of men, 
and those modern philosophical speculations re- 
garding the natural immortality of the disembodied 
spirit, the insufficiency of which has been already 
insisted on, have been brought to bear upon the 
question, and required to interpret the obscurities 
of Scripture ; whereby the notions which unpre- 
judiced minds would have derived from reflection 
on the inspired word have been too generally 
lost sight of. In the opinion of the writer, 
Scripture, when carefully and seriously pondered, 
positively confirms that sentence of unaided rea- 
son — " When man returns to his earth, all his 
thoughts perish." True philosophy, when sum- 
moned to interpret what the Bible declares of 
this state, will prophesy to man, as did Daniel 
to Belshazzar the king, " Thou deemest thyself 
to be a god, but thou art weighed in the balance 
and found wanting ; thine end is at hand." 



231 



CHAPTER II. 



IMMORTALITY BEGUN IN SPIRITUAL LIFE. 

J HEN the Creating "Word covered the earth 



▼ ▼ with trees and plants, each was ordained 
to bear its seed within itself, after its kind, that 
so, while the first individuals of each species de- 
cayed, the species itself should be perpetuated. 
And we find that through the endless variety of 
the vegetable creation, the same law of reproduc- 
tion is preserved, and though some are capable 
of propagation otherwise than by seeds, in all 
cases the life of the offspring is nothing more than 
a detached portion of the life of the parent plant. 
And thus vegetable life is, generally speaking, an 
immortal life, and appears to be as vigorous now, 
as it was in the earliest age. Yet there is only a 
conditional immortality ; certain species of plants 
have become extinct, and their former existence 
is known only by their fossil remains. And the 
same law of reproduction, the same kind of per- 
petual life is found in animals ; among whom the 
life of the young is in the fullest sense, and 
exactly in the same way as in vegetables, the life 
of the parents. 

And we have very great reason to believe that 
the law of decay and reproduction prevailed from 
the very first, and before the transgression of 
Adam, throughout the whole inferior and orga- 




232 



IMMORTALITY BEGUN 



nized creation. For there is no reason to think 
that only a few individuals of each species were 
created, as in the case of man : and that the re- 
productive principle was primarily intended only 
for the replenishment of the earth. The waters 
brought forth abundantly the moving creature 
that had life, and fowl to fly above the earth in 
the open expanse of heaven ; nor need we doubt 
that the earth also brought forth, in equal profu- 
sion, the herb yielding seed, the cattle and creep- 
ing thing. All were alike intended to increase 
and multiply, not only in order to fill the earth, 
which could have easily been effected at once by 
the Almighty Word, but to repair the ravages of 
decay. 

That the green herb, at least, was to perish may 
be concluded from the circumstance that it formed 
the earliest appointed food of man, and of the 
lower animals. An irresistible analogy compels 
us to believe that such mortality was the condition 
of all created things, man himself not excepted, 
unless we shall find in Scripture, to which alone 
reference is now to be made, special reasons for 
exempting him. 

Now Adam was originally, like all other ani- 
mals, a creature of dust, and, as has been observed 
in another place, the " breath of life" breathed into 
his nostrils was merely that of animal life, for it 
was also breathed into the nostrils of every living 
creature that moved upon the face of the earth. 
A Paradise, or garden of Eden was planted by 
the hand of the Lord, who " there put the man 
whom he had made ;" not forbidding him to " eat 



IN SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



233 



of the fruit of the Tree of Life." But Adam 
transgressed ; and he was expelled from Paradise, 
and that speedily, " lest he should put forth his 
hand, and take of the Tree of Life, and eating, 
live for ever." When he thus lost the Divine 
favour, and was deprived of all super-natural aid, 
it was made known to him that his originally ani- 
mal nature would subject him to decay ; that 
henceforth he must, like other creatures, maintain 
his life by his own exertions, and be exposed, as 
the originally necessary condition of terrestrial 
existence beyond Paradise, to sickness and pain, 
decay and death. " Cursed is the ground for 
thy sake, thorns also and thistles it shall bring 
forth to thee, — which yet, for anything revealed 
to the contrary, it may have brought forth before, 
though not for Adam, — in the sweat of the face 
shalt thou eat bread, until thou return to the 
ground ; for out of it thou wast taken ; for dust 

THOU ART, AND UNTO DUST THOU SHALT RETURN." 

This does not appear to be merely a Fall, like 
that which attended the expulsion of the rebel 
angels from heaven ; but rather a natural relapse, 
like the sinking of the apostle Peter, when, ap- 
palled by the fury of the waves, his faith failed 
him. 

Now we here maintain, and seek to prove from 
the New Testament, that man has not, and never 
had, any principle of perpetual life, other than 
that which belongs also to the inferior creation, 
except by the special grace and mercy of God. 
That he inherits nothing of the kind from his 



234 



IMMORTALITY BEGUN 



parents, nor receives it as a birth-right when he 
comes into the world ; and can obtain it only by 
means of Regeneration* Many persons deem 
that to be true of the human soul — of the more 
excellent part, or according to them, the " only 
essential" part of the natural man — which is, as 
we maintain, true only of the Divine Spirit that 
enlivens the hearts of the regenerate. And these 
persons commonly draw a distinction between the 
mind, which they allow to be changeable and 
perishable, and the soul, which they consider to 
be in itself immortal. This distinction, however, 
directly militates against the Scriptural doctrine 
of original or birth sin. For were the soul or 
spiritual part, or whatever else it is to be called, 
essentially distinct from the mind, the intellectual, 
the corporeal, or animal parts, and did it exist 
independently of them, by right of its own nature, 
unaffected by their mutations, being a possession 
for ever, as they would represent it, with which 
every man is endowed at his birth, and which 
forms an original and essential part of the human 
nature, it would follow unavoidably that this im- 
mortal part of man, this soul, would not partake 
of the corruption, which by corporeal descent 
" naturally is engendered of the offspring of 
Adam," according to the ninth Article of our 
Church, and according to the whole spirit and 



* The word being employed here in that wider sense which 
includes all who, under any dispensation, have been moved by 
the Holy Spirit. 



IN SPIRITUAL LIFE. 235 

tenour of the Scriptures, both of the Old and New 
Testament. The law of corruption pervades the 
whole nature of every soul of man : a fact which 
is of itself a sufficient proof that the whole nature 
comes by inheritance, is an off-shoot, a thing 
naturally engendered. The whole nature : for " the 
first man" the whole nature of the offspring of 
Adam, " is of the earth, earthy," a thing, accord- 
ing to the declaration of St. Paul, altogether 
" mortal," and " corruptible :" " the second man 
is the Lord from heaven." And there is no third 
nature, nothing appertaining to humanity, which 
comes not either through Adam or through Christ, 
no spiritual or immortal part, therefore, except in 
those who have part in Him. Men may be im- 
pelled by self love to explain away such passages 
as declare their natural worthlessness ; to deny 
that we are altogether creatures of dust, inheritors 
of corruption, doomed to return to the earth, from 
which, through Adam, we all derive our being. 
But the doctrine of regeneration proves, that these 
passages are literally and distinctly true. For it 
is not enough that the nature of the old man should 
be purified, that flesh and blood should be sanc- 
tified, that sin should be pardoned; the doing 
away of the old man would leave — nothing : 
fresh life must be given from above : and it is 
given not to all men, nor at the period of natural 
birth, but to those who, by being born again, " by 
the washing of regeneration and renewing of the 
Holy Spirit," become members of Christ. To 
exhibit this most important truth in its full extent, 



236 IMMORTALITY BEGUN 

and in all the relations which a reverent and ear- 
nest study of Scripture may suggest, would re- 
quire at least a separate volume : all that can be 
done in this place is, briefly to notice the prin- 
cipal texts and reasonings by which it may be 
established. 

Scripture notices two principles as influencing 
the human will, — the flesh, and the spirit. To 
walk after the flesh is to sin, to walk after the 
spirit is to please God. Now they who walk after 
the Spirit, it is clear from Scripture, are not 
obeying the dictates of a purified human nature, 
nor, as some suppose,* of a particular part of it, 
namely of a " soul" or human spirit, which, once 
freed from the taint of original sin, is capable of 
guiding them aright, but of a higher principle, 
a Spirit extrinsic, superhuman, Divine. Even 
the Son of God, in whom dwelt no sin, who, 
though partaking of humanity, was in every part 
of his nature spotless and pure, thus declared con- 
cerning himself : " The Son can do nothing of 
himself, but what he seeth the Father do, for what 
things soever he doeth, these also doth the Son 
likewise. * * * As the Father hath life in himself, 
so hath He given to the Son to have life in him- 
self. * * * It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the 
flesh profiteth nothing, the words that I speak unto 
you are spirit and are life. * * * As the living 
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so 



* Such is the error of the Anabaptists. 



IN SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



237 



lie that eateth me, even he shall live by me. * * * 
This is the Father's will which hath sent me, 
that of all which he hath given me I should lose 
nothing, but should raise it up again at the Last 
Day.f * * * I am the true vine. * # As the 
branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide 
in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in 
me. Without me ye can do nothing. If r- man 
abide not in me, he is cast forth as a brancli, and 
men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and 
they are burned." 

St. Paul bears ample testimony to the same 
vital truths. To the Romans, (chapter viii.) he 
says, " They that are in the flesh cannot please 
God. Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, 
if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you — 
If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of 
sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." 
And (1 Corinth, ii.) "What man knoweth the 
things of a man save the Spirit of man which is in 
him ; even so the things of God knoweth no man, 
hut the Spirit of Godf [for the natural man re- 
ceiveth them not]. And (Galatians ii.) " I am 
crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live ; yet 
not 2, but Christ liveth in me." And many 
other passages to the same effect might be ad- 
duced : none, most certainly, to a contrary effect. 
Throughout the whole of Scripture not the 
slightest hint can be found of the existence, in 



f Raise up then surely something more precious than the 
bodies of His saints. 



238 



IMMORTALITY BEGUN 



the human nature, of any immaterial part which 
is not fleshly and corrupt in itself. There is no 
third nature, we repeat, in addition to the " first 
man," which is of the earth and earthy, and the 
second man, which is the Lord from heaven. 

Bui; here a difficulty may appear to arise. If 
men °xe born of the Spirit in this world, if they 
receive now a nature which is not earthly, surely 
this nature must survive the decay of the first 
or natural man ; and then the regenerate, though 
not the unregenerate, would become possessed 
of immortal souls. " The Scripture hath taught 
us that there are two principles in the Chris- 
tian, distinguished by the names of the outward, 
and the inward man, the latter of which may 
be increasing in vigour, while the former is 
hastening to its dissolution. The inward prin- 
ciple is that which is born again in baptism ; and 
being born of God is of a divine nature. Conse- 
quently whatever may be said for or against the 
natural immortality of the soul, this principle 
cannot be subject to death in common with that 
nature which is born of the fie^s." # To this it 
may be sufficient to reply, that we have no reason 
to know or believe that this divine principle can 
subsist at all, as a separate, personal, individual 
thing, except in union with the conscious soul ; 
but we should rather think that it does, and must 
of necessity, return — in a higher sense than the 



* Jones' Dissertations, Vol. ii. 



IN SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



239 



mere breath returns, — to God who gave it ; 
and subsist just as it did before that human 
soul which it inspired was called into being. 
And had our Blessed Lord retained this spirit 
when in the grave, he would not have " com- 
mended it to his Father's hands," at the hour of 
his death. 



CHAPTER III. 

ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

THE Scriptures tell us plainly that on the 
Day of Judgement all the dead will rise 
again with their bodies. But they do not inform 
us, with equal clearness, what will be the con- 
dition of the soul of man between his death and 
resurrection. 

They contain some passages which speak of 
an entrance into heavenly bliss, or into the tor- 
ments of hell, as if no interval whatever was to 
elapse between death and judgement, but as if the 
final sentence was executed immediately on de- 
parture from this present world.*' And in many 
religious works and discourses departed Chris- 
tians are represented as having actually " entered 



* E. g. "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this 
the judgement." (Heb. ix.) and the Parable of Dives and La- 
zarus. 



240 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



[ 



into their glory as if they were already par- 
takers of the full beatitude of heaven itself. They 
who have avoided this error, which is completely 
subversive of the whole doctrine of resurrection 
unto judgement, — generally regard these passages 
as indicative of a previous judgement, and of in- 
termediate states of happiness or misery ; although 
it would seem more natural perhaps to conclude 
from them, that there was no interval between 
death and judgement worth considering, in con- 
sequence of the unconsciousness of the soul. 

Again, the Scriptures sometimes obscurely 
reveal to us certain modes of existence beyond 
the grave, which yet seem to belong neither to 
heaven nor to hell, but to some different region, 
intermediate, it may seem, both in point of time, 
and of happiness or misery.* And these passages 
have afforded ample scope for the exercise of the 
inventive and speculative faculties, for the imagi- 
nation, and for the affections ; arid seem to lighten 
up the cheerlessness of the grave with beams too 
welcome to be excluded, however feeble their 
radiance. 

And again, in many places, the Scriptures 
speak of the grave as a region of darkness and 
unconsciousness, and of the dead as buried in 
sleep. And these passages, which are very nu- 
merous, are among those which have led to the 



* Such as the account of the phantom of Samuel at Endor, 
and the appearance of Moses and Elias at the Mount of Trans- 
figuration. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



241 



conclusion entertained by many persons, and ad- 
vocated in this Book, that the dead are utterly 
unconscious, being spell-bound by the powers of 
Sin and Death, till the coming of the Great Day. 

The majority of the Christian world has how- 
ever preferred the more pleasing view, and has 
believed that the soul, retaining its consciousness 
after the death of the body, is at once consigned, 
by an anticipatory judicial process, either to a 
region of intermediate happiness, or one of in- 
termediate misery : they who have died in 
Christ passing into a state in which they are 
exempt from all pain, conscious of a nearer 
approach to the Father of Spirits, and exultingly 
certain of the final consummation of their bliss, 
when, at the Last Day, heaven itself should be 
open to receive them : while they who have " had 
no part in Him," undergo punishment light in 
comparison of that which will be inflicted on the 
Judgement Day, but still heavy and grievous, 
and augmented by fearful anticipations of the 
torment to come. This view attracts belief even 
by its terrors. It lights up the unseen world 
with lurid gleams from hell for the fearful and 
unbelieving ; and is sometimes thought to furnish 
a useful means of alarming careless sinners by a 
prospect of more speedy retribution. 

It ought to be kept in mind, that the opinion 
advocated in the first of the preceding Books, — 
that the soul of man is physically mortal, is not 
directly and of necessity affected by, or con- 

R 



242 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



nected with, our decision of the Scriptural ques- 
tion concerning the intermediate state. For if it 
appear from Scripture that man is physically 
mortal, this should confirm our philosophical 
conjectures ; but on no account should we reverse 
the order. We must not so far depend upon our 
philosophical conjectures as to regard them as 
confirmatory of scripture ; nor suffer them even 
to modify in the least degree the conclusions we 
should otherwise form from an attentive study of 
the inspired word. Should our philosophy teach 
us that man is naturally mortal, such a conclusion 
consists well with a belief in an intermediate con- 
sciousness derived from the Bible. For the same 
Almighty Being, the Lord and Giver of Life, 
who will raise our corruptible bodies at the last 
day, might well be supposed to confer an antici- 
patory and intermediate consciousness upon the 
separate soul, which by right of its own nature 
it could not have enjoyed. And should our phi- 
losophy tell us that man is naturally immortal, 
we must be nevertheless content to bend implicitly 
before Revelation ; and submit ourselves wholly 
to its sentence, unmodified by our previous con- 
jectures, however contradictory to them, however 
unwelcome to the "natural man." 

But at the same time, since many religious 
writers have mixed up their philosophical notions 
with those derived from Scripture, perverting 
the meaning of the latter into a false conformity 
with their speculations, the arguments contained 
in the foregoing Books may have, it is hoped, an 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 243 

indirect influence, with some minds, upon the 
interpretation they attach to the word of God ; 
by showing the strong improbability, on physical 
grounds, of consciousness after death ; and thus 
removing that haze of prejudice, which, like a 
mirage, falsely promised waters of life in the dry 
and barren wilderness of the grave. 

In considering the language of Scripture con- 
cerning death and the grave, life and resurrection, 
we naturally turn to the Old Testament in the 
first instance. We should reasonably expect that 
volume to contain less hopeful views of the grave 
than are presented in the New ; inasmuch as in 
the latter " life and immortality were brought to 
light by the gospel" of Christ. Yet we have not 
reason to suppose that the first Advent effected 
any such immediate change in Hades itself* as 
to render the language of the Jewish Scriptures 
inapplicable to the now existing state of things. 
If the dead were unconscious till the resurrection 
or ascension of Christ, so do they still remain. 
The one volume exhibits chiefly the prison and 
bondage of the grave, the other Christ the Re- 
deemer ; — Christ, not altering the nature of the 
grave, not at once subduing death, but emanci- 
pating first himself from its dominion ; and after- 
wards at his second advent, about to emancipate 
his saints : not at once giving them victory, but 



* i. e. in the place or state of departed souls. 



244 



OjST the intermediate state. 



securing for them, and making more fully known 
to them, the certainty of their future triumph. 

Turning afterwards to the New Testament, 
we shall have to consider whether it does not 
confirm the impression produced by the Old, — 
that the grave is to the soul of man a place or 
state of utter darkness and desolation, of profound 
sleep, of utter insensibility, — without hope, or 
retrospect, sorrow, or joy : whether it does not 
leave Hades still in gloom, and reserve all its 
rays of glory for "the brightness of the coming" 
of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. 

To commence with the account of man's crea- 
tion in Genesis. God made man in his own 
image, after his likeness : but he formed him 
moreover of the dust of the ground ; and breath- 
ing into his nostrils the breath of life, made him 
a living soul. Now is man immortal, because he 
was " in the image of God ?" or because " he 
became a living soul?" Each conclusion has 
been maintained ; but some supporters of the one 
have not ventured to maintain the other. The 
inferior animals, as has been already shown, par- 
took of the same breath of life as man. The 
same, for in Genesis no difference is made, and 
further on the sameness is expressly asserted. 
" When God gathers unto himself his spirit and 
his breath, all flesh shall perish together, and 
man shall turn again unto dust." Though the 
breath of God caused Adam to become a living 
soul, it did not therefore give him an immortal 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



245 



soul ; for the effect cannot survive its sustaining- 
cause ; and the " breath of life" being withdrawn, 
the life itself must cease. It is the second Adam 
that is immortal, not the first ; the " quickening 
spirit," not the " living soul."* But this is to 
anticipate. 

And why should a creature, formed in the 
image of God, be immortal ? This reason sounds 
strangely from the lips of such as assert that man 
has wholly lost If that image. If, as is urged by 
Calvin and others, the image of the Father of 
Spirits could be represented, to our mental vision, 
in no other way than through the " spiritual part" 
of man, still it may be asked, — why an eternal 
part ? Granting even that it was wholly " in 
righteousness and true holiness" that man was 
formed " after the image of him that created 
him," why should man therefore endure for ever, 
inasmuch as that holiness is a possession capable 
of forfeiture ? Created in time, man might endure 
for a time, and yet be truly a representative, in many 
of his attributes, of the Eternal, and Unchanging 



* 1 Cor. xv. 

f That the image is not wholly lost is certain from several 
places of Scripture. Thus in Genesis ix. " Whoso sheddeth 
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed,yb?' in the image 
of God made He man :" which could be no reason, if that image 
were wholly lost by the fall. And man is termed in 1 Cor. xi. 
" the image and glory of God ;" and is said by St. James, to be 
" made after the similitude of God." 

And there is also some ground in Scripture for believing that 
God created man in his own image, in that " male and female 
created he them." See Appendix. 



246 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



God. For why should a future eternity be held 
more essential to the resemblance than a past 
eternity ? To the Being of God Himself the one 
condition is as essential as the other ; and still 
more, — why should Adam be thought to resemble 
God in the attribute of future eternity, when in 
that of holiness no longer ? 

Some persons have held that the solemn deli- 
beration of the Almighty, before the creation of 
Adam, and the minuteness of detail with which 
that creation is described, indicate an essential 
difference between man and the rest of the ani- 
mated creatures. Be it so. But while these 
things lead us to believe that the indwelling 
Spirit of God made Adam " like the Most High," 
let them teach also the solemn lesson, that the 
glorious privilege could be forfeited, and the man 
"brought down to Hades;" that He who made 
Adam a creature of dust, could unmake him into 
dust again, and " cut him down to the ground 
that without the supernatural sustenance of the 
Tree of Life, his living soul and body, even as 
those of the other earth-born creatures, were but 
perishable things. 

It might fairly be urged on the other hand, that 
other parts of Scripture prove the Mosaic account 
to be short of the real truth. The subtle serpent 
was Satan. The garden of Eden is universally 
held to have been a place of more than earthly 
delights, the Tree of Life, we know, can grow in 
the soil of heaven. The creation therefore of 
Adam from the dust, and his condemnation to 



OX THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



247 



return to dust, ought not to be too narrowly and 
unspiritually taken. But what should be our more 
spiritual interpretation but this, that Adam was 
created mortal, and fell by natural relapse ? That 
the first man was of the earth, earthy ? 

Moreover, death was the punishment of Adam's 
transgression. " Because thou hast hearkened 
unto the voice of thy wife," toil and pain shall be 
thy portion, " till thou return to the ground, for 
dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." 
If the separation of soul and body be not in itself 
a punishment, then was death no punishment to 
Adam. In what consists, according to the oppo- 
site notion, the proper " sting of Death ;" and 
what is " the power of the grave ?" They are 
plainly reduced to nothing. Punishments may 
indeed be inflicted for transgression upon a dis- 
embodied soul (as upon a soul incorporate), but 
this does not render death itself a punishment, 
nor give any reason why the grave should be 
dreaded by man, why the soul should abhor to be 
left in Hades, and should earnestly seek to be 
redeemed from its tyranny. 

It has been urged that the separation of soul 
and body cannot be the thing intended, because 
Adam did not, in that sense, die in the day when 
he transgressed. The sentence is held to involve 
death, spiritual, temporal, and eternal ; and Adam 
is supposed to have undergone the first kind of 
death immediately, and the second afterwards. 
But it is not easy to show how any part of the 
sentence could be delayed, without violation of 



V 



248 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

the letter of the law. Let ns however remember, 
that on the very day on which Adam fell, and before 
the sentence of his death had gone forth from the 
mouth of his Judge, a promise of mercy through 
Christ was set before the trembling sinner. The 
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world 
arrested the execution ; purchased present for- 
bearance, and opened a new and living way, 
whereby the decree might be virtually annulled. 
And if Adam died " in faith," then, in the sense 
of the decree, he surely died not at all ; he died 
a stingless death, a death which was, to him, at 
once swallowed up in final victory. But this may 
be rendered more plain hereafter, by the light of 
the New Testament. 

The total privation of life is indeed a grievous 
calamity to a happy creature, and even they whose 
existence is far from being happy shrink from the 
idea of death : but if the privation be temporary, 
and be followed by a restoration to life and hap- 
piness, then death itself may seem desirable, not 
for its own sake, but for the sake of its conse- 
quences ; or the interval may be altogether dis- 
regarded in comparison of the glories which are 
expected to follow. And thus we find the inspired 
writers of the Old Testament speak of the grave 
sometimes as a place of gloom and desolation 
(such as to be itself a punishment to the wicked), 
and from which the righteous shrink back, while 
at the same time they earnestly contemplate a 
future deliverance from its inevitable grasp ; and 



OX THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



249 



sometimes regarding it as a welcome resting-place 
for the soul until the end of the world ; and some- 
times overlooking it altogether, through the bright- 
ness of the vision beyond. Never is the grave said 
to be in itself desirable, to be a place of life, and 
light, and joy ; never is death represented to be 
a gladsome or even a hopeful state. In the most 
favourable view of it, it is called a sleep — a wel- 
come word for the righteous, since it reminds 
them of their joyful awakening ; but not expressive 
of conscious peace, as some pretend, since the 
same " sleep" is inflicted on sinners as their pun- 
ishment.* Very commonly it is described by 
negatives, as a state wherein is no thought, no 
hope, no knowledge, no light ; but wherein man 
is as a thing that is utterly perished and gone. 

Thus David declares that man, when in the 
grave, has " no longer any remembrance of God," 
that he cannot c< give him thanks," nor " declare 
his truth ;" that " the dead cannot praise the 
Lord, nor any that go down into silence," that 
the faithfulness and truth of God are not mani- 
fested to man, so long as he lies in the grave, 
nor his righteousness shown in the land of for- 
getfulness ;" that " when man's breath goeth 
forth he returneth to the earth, and in that very 
day his thoughts perish." f Solomon uses lan- 
guage even stronger than this, if possible, to show 



* The force of this word " sleep" is more fully considered in 
the next chapter. 

f Psalm vi. xxx. lxxxviii. cxlvi. etc. 



250 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



the utter unconsciousness of the grave. " A 
living dog," he says, " is better than a dead lion. 
For the living know that they shall die ; but the 
dead know not any thing" * And further, 
" Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with 
thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor 
knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou 
goest." Tillotson's comment upon this is as fol- 
lows. " This life is the proper season of activity 
and industry, of designing and doing those things 
which tend to our future happiness ; and when 
this life is ended there will be no further opportu- 
nity of working ; nothing will remain but to re- 
ceive the recompense ;" etc. But they who work 
well, " shall be recompensed at the resurrection 
of the just." And the Preacher's words are a 
warning to work, "before the night cometh." 

Dr. Watts, in the same spirit of equivocation 
with Tillotson, chooses to suppose that David and 
and Solomon speak only of " such thoughts and 
actions, both religious and civil, as are practised 
in this life, 5 ' — "men's present way and manner 
of divine worship ; and their management or 
consciousness of human affairs ;" but not to ex- 
clude "all manner of consciousness, knowledge, 

* See Eccles. ix. 4. Calvin could find no better mode of 
evading the force of this, than by supposing that by " the dead" 
were meant such as were so buried in trespasses and sins, as to 
be unmindful of death, and of all things of spiritual importance ; 
while by " the living" was intended such as were duly mindful 
of death, and were alive to their best interests ! It would seem 
then, that a living dog is one that knows he shall die, a dead 
lion one that does not ! 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 251 

thought, and action, such as may be united to 
the invisible state of spirits." But surely this 
is a most idle and weak pretence. If the state 
of those who have died in the love and fear of 
God be one of vivid consciousness, how can it be 
said that " all thoughts perish ?" What manner 
of knowledge and consciousness is consistent with 
the assertion, — " the living know that they shall 
die, but the dead know not any thing ? How can 
it possibly be said of beatified spirits who are 
rejoicing in the presence of Jehovah, worshipping 
Him for His greatness, glorifying Him for their 
redemption, that " they cannot give God thanks, 
nor declare His truth, nor perceive His faithful- 
ness ?" How could the grave possibly be to them 
a "land of forgetfulness ?" How could it be said, 
that God's loving-kindness is there unknown ? 
And how, — to proceed with our evidence from 
the Old Testament, — how could Job term the 
grave " a land of darkness, and of the shadow of 
death ; a land of darkness, as darkness itself, and 
of the shadow of death, without any order, and 
where the light is as darkness?"'* Further on, 
being weary of his life, because of the afflictions 
wherewith he was visited, he exclaims, " Are not 
my days few ? cease then [O my God] and let me 
take comfort a little, before I go hence and be no 
more seen." So far was he from looking to the 
grave itself, as a place wherein he should be com- 
forted after his sorrows. 



* Chap. x. 



252 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



David, Solomon, and Job, were not ignorant 
that a life awaited them beyond the grave : nor 
did they, through any doubts about this matter, 
throw a false gloom on the valley of the shadow 
of death. Had they been ignorant, they would 
have been silent ; the Holy Spirit would not have 
lent His sanction to their errors ; and allowed the 
words of inspiration to be mingled and contami- 
nated with positive falsehood. For if the soul of 
man, when in Hades, is in joy and felicity beyond 
that of earth, it is wholly false to represent the 
grave as a land of forgetfulness, and where God's 
truth is not manifested, nor His righteousness 
known.* Though Solomon knew that God would 
" bring every work into judgment," and David 
foresaw the resurrection of Christ, f and trusted 
that he would be " shewn the path of life and 
Job expected " in his flesh to see God,'' none of 
them, we have seen, expected to enjoy God's 
presence before they were raised from the dead. 

The use of the word " sleep" for death, by 
these and other inspired writers, would alone go 
far to prove that it is a state of darkness, silence, 
forgetfulness, unconsciousness. Thus it is written 
of the profligate and idolatrous people of Babylon, 
" In their heat I will make their feasts, and make 
them drunken that they may rejoice, and sleep a 

* The question concerns not dead corpses, but dead men. 
It would be preposterous to say that the body, when in the grave, 
is ignorant of God's truth and righteousness : which never were 
known at all, except by the soul. 

f Acts ii. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 253 

perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the Lord."* 
And of the resurrection at the Last Day, 4 ' many 
of them that sleep in the dust of the earth, shall 
awake, and shall come forth, some to everlasting 
life, and some to shame and everlasting con- 
tempt." f The same word is frequently used in 
the New Testament, and in the same sense, in 
passages which will be considered hereafter. The 
strongest passage in all the Bible, however, is 
perhaps that in the fourteenth chapter of the book 
of Job. " There is hope of a tree, if it be cut 
down, that it will sprout again, and that the ten- 
der branch thereof will not cease, though the root 
thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof 
die in the ground, yet through the scent of water 
it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. 
But man dieth and wasteth away ; yea, man 
giveth up the ghost, and where is he ? As the 
waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth 
and drieth up, so man lieth down and riseth not ; 
till the heavens be no more they shall not awake, 
nor be raised out of their sleep. O that thou 
wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest 
keep me secret until thy wrath be past, that thou 
wouldest appoint me a set time and remember 
me. If a man die shall he live again ? All the 
days of my appointed time will I wait until my 
change come. Thou shalt call and I will answer 
thee ; thou wilt have a desire unto the work of 
•thine hands." Here it is asserted, that when 



* Jeremiah li. -j- Daniel xii. 



254 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

man expires, he is as completely gone, and does as 
entirely disappear, as the flood which, after the 
rainy season, is dried up by the sun and wind. 
That in him there is no stock that may sprout 
again, no surviving principle of life, which, under 
more favourable circumstances, may again exhibit 
its dormant energies. He shall indeed be re- 
membered by the Almighty, he shall then awake 
and answer the call of God, but till then he is 
asleep and kept secret, " hidden in the grave," 
bearing no part and discharging no functions 
among living beings. Few indeed, if any, of 
those persons who believe in an intermediate con- 
sciousness could bring themselves to utter this 
ejaculation of Job. What meaning could they 
attach to the prayer, 44 Oh that thou wouldest 
hide me in the grave, and keep me secret till the 
judgment day," who expect a still nearer approach 
to God, than when they abode in the flesh, and, in 
many instances, even look for an immediate intro- 
duction to the " innumerable company of angels," 
and to the " spirits of just men made perfect?" 

This passage of Job receives valuable illustra- 
tion from Isaiah.* " Thy dead men shall live, 
together with my dead body shall they arise. 
Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust, for your 
dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall 
cast out the dead. Come, my people, enter thou 
into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee ; 
hide thyself, as it were for a little moment, until 



* Is. xxvi. 19, &c. 



OX THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



255 



the indignation be overpast. For behold, the 
Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inha- 
bitants of the earth for their iniquity ; the earth 
also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more 
cover her slain." Here, having first proclaimed 
a joyful resurrection for God's people, the pro- 
phet calls upon them, in the name of the Lord, to 
enter without fear the chambers of the grave ; 
and there abide until the indignation be overpast, 
i. e. according to Job, till the heavens be no 
more." Till then they were to be " hidden in 
the grave," and kept secret." But shall the in- 
terval seem long and dreary? Far from it. " Hide 
thyself, my people, as it were for a etttee 

MOMENT." 

Let us now consider the language used in a 
time of trial by one of the most faithful of God's 
servants of old, Hezekiah, king of Judah. He 
lived in intimacy with Isaiah, and was visited by 
the prophet on what he deemed to be his death- 
bed. After his recovery he wrote, " I said, I 
shall not see the Lord, even the Lord in the land 
of the living, I shall behold man no more, with 
the inhabitants of the world." " For the grave 
cannot praise thee ; death cannot celebrate thee ; 
they that go down into the pit cannot hope for 
thy truth'' No pretence similar to that of Dr. 
^Vatts can be here maintained for a moment. To 
" hope for the truth of God" is an exercise of 
thought peculiarly fitted for the state of disem- 
bodied spirits, if they be really conscious. 



25G ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

And why should this, our present world be 
termed " the land of the living," if life, equally 
energetic, awaited the disembodied spirit ? 

Nor can it be said that it is the body only, 
which goes down into the pit. Hezekiah did not 
grieve because his body could not hope for the 
truth of God when in the grave ; but because he 
himself could not : i. e. because the grave ex- 
tended its dominion even over those faculties of 
the mind of which hope is an exercise. 

One other passage should be added to these, 
which will nearly complete our Old Testament 
evidence. " I said in my heart concerning the 
estate of the sons of men, that God might mani- 
fest them, and that they might see, that they 
themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth 
the sons of men befalleth beasts, even one thing 
befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the 
other ; yea, they have all one breath ; so that a 
man hath no preeminence above a beast ; for all 
is vanity. All go unto one place, all are of the 
dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth 
the spirit of a man that goeth upward,* and the 
spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the 
earth ?" To which we may add the words in the 
latter part of the same book, " Then shall the 
dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit 



* Or, according to the Septuagint, " Who knoweth if the 
spirit of a man goeth upward," etc. And this seems to be a 
fair translation of the Hebrew. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



257 



return to God who gave it." Bishop Bull was so 
little pleased with the language of the Preacher 
in the first of these passages, that he chooses to 
put the greater part of it into the mouth of an 
unbeliever ! Solomon, he says, " introduces an 
Epicurean (if he may be so called by anticipa- 
tion), deriding the notion of the soul's immor- 
tality.'' Yet what is said here that differs from 
the sentence — Dust thou art, and unto dust thou 
shalt return ? What is implied in the return of 
the dust to its parent earth, and of the spirit to 
God the Creator, but that each shall be as before 
the creation of the man ? * Not that this would 
render death a total annihilation. He who cre- 
ated, and unmade again, can as easily renew his 
work ; and can restore the soul of man, when he 
raises his body from the grave, by breathing again 
into his nostrils the breath of life.f 

But until God shall thus manifest His power 
and glory, and fulfil His promises, for the happi- 
ness of his creatures, man, say the Scriptures of 
the Old Testament, is not in a region of glory, 
but in a land of darkness ; not in the presence of 



* For the spirit or breath, when detached from the body of 
a living being, is often said to be not theirs, but God's. " When 
God gathers unto Himself His spirit, and His breath, all flesh 
shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust." 

f In truth, however, far more than this will be done for the 
new creature ; as is shown in 1 Cor. xv. The " second man" 
will be endued with that " quickening spirit" of immortality 
which was not conferred on the first, on him that was " of the 
earth, earthy." Of this more in the next chapter. 

s 



258 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



God, but hidden in secret chambers ; not em- 
ployed in glorifying Him, but buried in sleep ; 
u not hoping for His truth" but "in a land 
where all things are forgotten." Whoever dis- 
believes this, must hold that by cc the dead" is 
meant only €i dead corpses," that the grave is 
called a " land of forgetfulness, " because these 
corpses cannot then exert the (mental) power of 
memory ; and finally, that by " those who cannot 
hope for God's truth, nor know His lovingkind- 
ness," are intended — the carcases of saints in 
glory ! Suppositions these so utterly prepos- 
terous that it is impossible that men could ever 
have believed in the consciousness and glorifica- 
tion of the dead, had they not utterly disregarded 
the import of the language of the Old Testament ; 
and rested either on the suggestions of their own 
minds, the authority of a prevalent opinion, or, 
at best, on some (misinterpreted) passages occur- 
ing in one portion only of the inspired books. 
But whatever the New Testament may appear to 
some persons to declare, its language must, if 
possible, be reconciled with that of the Old ; and 
unless the former should expressly and unequivo- 
cally declare that the dead are all alive, and the 
sleeping saints fully awake, we may safely rest 
satisfied with the faith of David and Solomon, of 
Isaiah, Daniel, and Job ; and with their blessed 
hope that, though for a little moment they should 
sleep in the dust of the earth, they should yet 
tf£ awake to everlasting life, and shine as the 
brightness of the firmament for ever." 



259 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE INTERMEDIATE STATE CONTINUED. 

IT is now to be inquired whether the Books of 
the New Testament, which contain the Gos- 
pel that brought life and immortality to light, 
remove aught of the gloom with which, as we have 
seen, the earlier Scriptures enveloped the grave ; 
and disclose to us any brightening of the realms 
of Hades through the death or resurrection of 
Christ ? 

In the New Testament, even more frequently 
than in the Old, the state of the departed is termed 
" sleep." For the disciples of Christ, strong in 
their hope of immortality, dwelt more on the 
future restoration to life, than on the intermediate 
gloom : which they described by a word not 
necessarily implying a return to consciousness, 
but perfectly consistent with it, and when coupled 
with express promises of resurrection, calculated 
to lead men to look forward without dread to their 
departure into the unseen world. Thus St. Paul 
says of the unworthy partakers of the Holy Com- 
munion, " For this cause many are weak and 
sickly among you, and many sleep ;" and bids 
the Thessalonians " sorrow not, concerning them 
which are asleep in Jesus." And thus our Lord 
himself said of the daughter of Jairus, <£ The 
maid is not dead but sleepeth," merely to signify 



2G0 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

that she would be restored again to life. 
Merely for this end ; since, when His disciples 
misunderstood His saying, " our friend Lazarus 
sleepeth," " then said Jesus unto them plainly, 
Lazarus is dead." 

It has been often supposed that the soul is 
altogether free from the dominion of this " sleep," 
and that the word is employed in Scripture in 
order to denote the rest of the body in the grave, 
and to remind us that that rest will be temporary 
only. But does the word sleep, in its usual accep- 
tation, refer solely or chiefly to the body ? Most 
certainly not. It is usually understood to mean 
a state of unconsciousness, either total or partial. 
In ordinary language a man is said to be awake, 
whenever he is conscious of what is going on 
around him, or is exercising any control over the 
current of his own thoughts., though he may be 
lying motionless and with closed eyes, in the 
usual posture of sleeping persons. And to walk 
" in one's sleep" is to walk in a state of uncon- 
sciousness. Both these instances prove that the 
word is commonly used of the mind, and the mind 
alone. Similarly, a limb is said to be " asleep" 
when it is benumbed, insensible, unconscious, 
dead ; * and further, if sleep did not denote in* 



* In sleep, unaccompanied by dreaming, consciousness does 
not exist ; at least there is not the slightest proof of its existence. 
We are therefore justified in asserting that real sleep is a tem- 
porary metaphysical death. — Macnish on the Philosophy of 
Sleep. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 261 

sensibility but repose, we should find it frequently 
used to signify the rest of inanimate things. But 
how is it that when a forest is felled, or a city 
has fallen into ruins, the trees or stones are never 
said to be sleeping ? Plainly because they are not 
in a state of suspended consciousness ; they were 
never awake. And why is it that a tree, when 
erect, living and growing, cannot even be con- 
ceived to sleep or wake ? Simply because it has 
no consciousness which can come or go. The 
word " sleep" does not necessarily denote a state 
which shall be followed by restoration to life or 
consciousness. It was not so used when God 
said of the Babylonish idolaters, " they shall 
sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake," nor by the 
Epicurean philosopher who termed death " a long- 
unbroken never ending sleep." It must be kept 
in mind that the question here is not whether the 
body of a man can in any intelligible sense be 
said to be asleep, but whether, when the man is 
said to be asleep, his mind is not supposed to be 
wrapped in slumber. 

Much stress has been laid upon the fact that 
the Greek word Ko^ao-fla*, which is used to ex- 
press the sleeping the sleep of death, literally 
signifies to recline ; and seems therefore to refer 
to a state rather of the body than of the mind. 
But it was not so understood by St. Matthew, 
when in his account of our Lord's Crucifixion he 
wrote " the graves were opened, and many bodies 
of the Saints which slept arose and came out of 
the graves, after his resurrection." For in the 



262 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



original the expression is literally " many bodies 
of the sleeping saints the word rendered 
" sleeping," (xBxoipnpuTW — recumbent, reclining) 
being that which it is sometimes pretended refers 
to the body alone. 

Again, what is to " awake," but to be restored 
to life, consciousness and activity? And why 
should we confine to the body alone the meaning 
of such expressions as these, " All men shall rise 
again with their bodies," " many of them that 
sleep in the dust of the earth shall wake and shall 
come forth," " when I wake ap after thy likeness 
I shall be satisfied with it," " he shall rise again," 
i( I will raise him up at the last day." And in 
what way can we best reconcile such expressions 
with the language of the Old Testament writers 
concerning the grave ? Surely not in alleging that 
they relate only to the body. If the soul of a 
saint departed were already raised to glory, and 
exerting its energies in a much more perfect 
manner than before, that saint would not be said 
to be in a land of forgetfulness, merely because 
his soulless body was so. But we have seen that 
the grave was called a place of darkness and 
silence, a land of forgetfulness, a hiding place 
from God, a land in which there is no knowledge, 
and where all things are forgotten ? 

To these passages have been opposed others 
which, since they declare that the " life" once 
kindled within the souls of believers by the grace 
of God is " eternal," and that they already have 
this u eternal life," seem to imply that there can 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



2G3 



be no interval of unconsciousness. But when 
our blessed Lord would confirm to any one this 
promise of eternal life, he did so, as we find in 
many instances, by reminding and assuring them 
of a resurrection. Thus having declared, " he 
that heareth my word and believeth on him that 
sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come 
into condemnation, but is passed from death unto 
life ;" he thus confirms his words, " Verily, verily 
I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is,* 
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of 
God, and they that hear shall live."f The same 
connection is exhibited in a preceding passage — 
" As the Father raise th up the dead and quick- 
eneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom 
he will." And again in the following chapter — 
" This is the will of Him that sent me, that every 
one which believeth on the Son may have ever- 
lasting life, and I will raise him up at the last 
day." 

And then, when the believer is thus raised up, 



* So that the interval between the first and second Advents^ 
though of tens of centuries, was in some sense inappreciably 
short. For it does great violence to the context, to understand 
our Lord to speak of the regeneration of those that were dead 
in sin. Our Lord appears to speak of an universal restoration 
to life. All the dead, — not the elect only — shall hear and live. 

The Son indeed " quickeneth whom he will " which may seem 
to imply a selection ; but his work is represented as commensu- 
rate with that of the Father, who raises all that are in the graves. 
And the Son doth select, — in granting to whom he will a resur- 
rection unto life. 

f John v. 24, 25. 



264 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

he will rejoice in the presence of Christ : then, 
and not before. Yet to many persons St. Paul 
has appeared to say the contrary. " I am in 
a strait betwixt two," he says, " having a desire 
to depart and to be with Christ, which is far 
better. Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more 
needful for you." And shortly before, " to me 
to live is Christ, and to die is gain"* And 
again,")* " we are always confident, knowing that 
while we are at home in the body, we are absent 
from the Lord ; — and willing rather to be absent 
from the body and present with the Lord.'" But 
let St. Paul himself explain his own meaning. He 
thus continues the passage last quoted. " Where- 
fore we labour, that whether present or absent, 
we may be accepted of him. For we must all 
appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that 
every one may receive the things done in his 
body, according to that he hath done, whether it 
be good or bad." St. Paul then hoped to be 
accepted of Christ, whether absent from him in 
this world, or present with him in the world to 
come ; and through this hope desired to depart ; 
disregarding altogether his brief plunge into 
darkness, his " momentary hiding in the grave." J 
The whole context also shows this to have been 
his feeling. He daily hazarded his life, in con- 
fident hope of the time when he himself, and all 
his disciples, being together raised from their 



* Philipp. i. 21. f 2 Cor. v. 6. 

X Isaiah xxvi. 20, quoted above. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



2G5 



graves, should be admitted into the presence of 
God and of Christ. — " Knowing that He which 
raised up Jesus from the dead, shall raise up us 
also by Jesus, and shall present us, with your 
Ilccpaca-TnG-oa, properly signifies to " introduce," or 
" present," (i. e. before the Father's throne), and 
is again used by St. Paul in another epistle, in 
exactly the same signification. Christ gave him- 
self for his Church, he says, " that he might pre- 
sent it unto himself a glorious Church ;" and this 
surely at the Last Day, when the bride shall be 
brought unto the King ; and with joy and glad- 
ness enter into his palace.* This 'presentation 
of all the redeemed together, and especially of 
his own disciples, unto Christ at his second com- 
ing was the reward, the u weight of glory," for 
which St. Paul laboured. " What is our hope, 
or joy, or crown of rejoicing," said he to his 
Thessalonian converts. " Are not even ye in 
the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his 
coining?" And he looked, he said, " for invisi- 
ble things, which also were eternal:' " For we 
know," he continues, " that if our earthly house 
of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a 
building of God ; a house not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, 



* Psalm xlv. We have additional proof that St. Paul hoped 
to be " present with Christ" at the Last, Day, in 1 Cor. i. 7-9. 
Where he exhorts them to wait for Christ's coming, who should 
" confirm them to the end, that they might be blcunehss in that 
day :" and might be fit to form part of the Church which should 
then be found " without spot or wrinkle.'' 



266 OX THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

earnestly, desiring to be, clothed upon with our 
house which is from heaven." " For we that are 
in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, not 
for that ive would be unclothed, but clothed upon, 
that mortality might be swallowed up of life." 
Here St. Paul expressly declared, that he desired 
not an intermediate happiness for his soul alone, 
but to be clothed in a glorified body, in which 
he should find acceptance when presented to 
Christ. When therefore he immediately after- 
wards, almost in the same breath, expresses his 
wish to " depart and be with Christ," we cannot 
doubt that the object of his hope was an entrance, 
at the Last Day, into eternal glory.* 

Indeed throughout the apostolical epistles ; and 
in more places than can be referred to in these 
pages, the interval between this life and the next, 
between this world and the world to come, is 
passed over as if it were nothing. Nothing; 
even in comparison of this present world. The 
Christian is not taught to look forward to it, even 
as a period of repose from the miseries of this 
life ! When Christians suffered persecution, what 
could be more natural, — if there were indeed a 
conscious repose in the grave, — than to remind 
them of it ; to remind them that, though they 
could not at once receive their final reward, yet 
a partial relief, an intermediate reward, should 
instantly be given to their disembodied souls ? 



* The reader is most earnestly requested to peruse the latter 
part of 2 Cor. iv. and the former part of the chapter following. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



2G7 



Bat when St Paul would give encouragement to 
the Thessalonians under a heavy persecution, he 
promises them no rest whatever, until Christ's 
second coming. "It is a righteous thing for 
God to recompense tribulation to them which 
trouble you, and to you who are troubled rest 
with us, — when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed 
from heaven with the angels of his might."* 
The " rest" here spoken of, — in the original wea-is, 
— is simply a cessation of trouble ; precisely that 
kind of repose which, according to many (unin- 
spired) persons, the grave itself is calculated to 
afford. 

There remaineth indeed " a rest for the people 
of God :" a rest not in the narrow house, in the 
chambers of the grave ; but in the heavenly Ca- 
naan, the new Jerusalem, the prepared mansions : 
a rest from labours reserved for the blessed dead 
who have died in the Lord, from that time forth, 
when the Apocalyptic Babylon has fallen, and 
the ripened harvest of the earth is cut down by 
the sickle of Almighty wrath. f 

Until the Lord shall be revealed from heaven, 
his saints are to look for nothing at his hands 



* And similarly in 2 Cor. i. 9. " We had the sentence of 
death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in 
God which raiseth the dead." And Philip, iii. " Our conver- 
sation is in heaven ; from whence also we look for the Saviour, 
who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like 
unto his glorious body." 

f Rev. xiv. 13, 14, 15. 



268 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

but that he should keep them secret, intending at 
his set time to remember them, and that " their 
spirits and souls and bodies should be preserved,"* 
before God, unto that day. Thus it was that 
Stephen prayed, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit ;" 
even as Jesus himself, when expiring on the cross, 
voluntarily resigned his spirit to his Father's 
keeping, to be restored to him again on the third 
day. Thus St. Pauls consolation, in the pros- 
pect of death was, "if we be dead with him, we 
shall also live with him ; if we suffer with him, 
we shall also reign with him."f He hoped not 
to reign, neither did he hope to live, before the 
appearing and kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
He looked to receive a crown of righteousness, 
which the judge should give him in that day ; 
and sought no other reward. 

Many of his expressions also tend to show, 
that life itself, as well as reward, was to be future. 

" As we have borne the image of the earthly, 
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly :" | 
bear it, according to St. John, when Christ shall 
appear, and we shall " see him as he is ; all which 
is in perfect accordance with those expressions 
of our Lord above referred to, wherein the gift 
of " eternal life," or immortality, is connected 
with that of resurrection of the body. But nearly 
the whole of the remarkable chapter to which we 
have referred, deserves attentive consideration ; 
inasmuch as the subject of the resurrection is there 



* See 1 Thess. v. 23. f 2 Tim. ii. 12. + 1 Cor. xv. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



2G9 



not merely alluded to, but made the subject of a 
formal dissertation. " If Christ be not raised, they 
which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." 
If these words do not amount to a proof of inter- 
mediate unconsciousness, they at least show, that 
but for the resurrection of Christ the grave would 
have been the destruction of all who entered its 
dark portals ; — that man is naturally mortal. 
But they may well be understood to declare the 
far more important doctrine, that all the departed 
are now slumbering in the unconsciousness of 
death, and can never be reanimated, unless Christ 
have indeed risen. 

" As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall 
all be made alive. Christ the first-fruits, after- 
wards they that are Christ's at his coming." The 
force of these words can be evaded in no other 
way, than by maintaining that Christ gives life to 
the body only ; — that it is not through His power 
that souls are saved alive. But if it be true, that 
Christ restores to the soul that life which was 
forfeited through Adam ; and if St. Paul declares 
that it is at Christ's coming that the forfeited life 
is restored, then it is plain that the power of death 
prevails over the soul unto the Great Day. The 
latter part of this remarkable chapter strengthens 
this conclusion. For it allows to the first or 
natural man, — by whom is here intended the 
Christian, in that state in which he dies, — no 
portion whatever in, nor benefit from, the life 
which Christ is afterwards to bestow. "It is 
sown a natural bod} 7 ; it is raised a spiritual 



270 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



body." * * " As we have born the image of the 
earthy, so we shall bear the image of the hea- 
venly." It is not till the last trump has sounded, 
that we can hope to " put on incorruption." Will 
it be said that this refers only to our receiving 
in that day an imperishable body ? What then 
can be meant by the further expression — "this 
mortal shall put on immortality?" How could 
the possessor of an immortal soul, which, whether 
embodied or not, would live in glory and bliss 
through all eternity, be called mortal until the 
resurrection ? Observe that St Paul is not here 
speaking of the body only, but of the man. He is 
replying to the two-fold question, " How are the 
dead raised up, and with what body do they 
come ?" And it is not the body of the first man, 
but the first man himself who is earthy, mortal, 
corruptible. His corruptible, mortal frame does 
not "put on immortality;" for "thou sowest not 
that body which shall be ;" but it is exchanged 
for a body of a different kind. The man, or the 
soul of the man, is invested with immortality ; it 
is the man therefore, or the soul of the man, which 
is previously mortal. 

And the interval between the putting off the 
one body, and assuming the other, between the 
sowing of the seed, and the rising of the new 
creature, is passed over as if it were nothing. 

The whole of this doctrine of intermediate 
unconsciousness derives strong support from the 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 271 

noted passage of St. Paul to the Thessalonians,* 
wherein he beseeches them not to sorrow for the 
dead, even as the rest (the heathen) which have 
no hope. " For if we believe that Jesus died 
and rose again, even so them also which sleep in 
Jesus will God bring with him. For * * we 
which are alive and remain unto the coming of 
the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven ; 
* * and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then 
we which are alive and remain shall be caught 
up together with them in the clouds to meet the 
Lord in the air ; and so shall we ever be with 
the Lord. Wherefore comfort ye one another 
with these words." St. Paul here declares that 
the dead in Christ shall meet one another, and 
meet also their friends who were alive at Christ's 
coming, on the Last Day, and not before. But 
it has been said, " The Thessalonians deeply re- 
gretted the loss of their friends : St. Paul assures 
them of the certainty of a re-union. They thought 
the day of Christ was at hand : then, if so, St. 
Paul tells them that Jesus would bring with him 
their deceased friends ; and, if they died pre- 
viously, St. Paul does not deny that they would 
see him previously." f The words 66 bring with 
him" might, it is true, lead us to some such view 
as this. But did St. Paul intend them to believe 
that their sleeping friends were actually with 



* 1 Tliess. iv. \ Whytt on Disembodied Spirits. 



272 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

Jesus ; that they which were asleep would prevent 
(or anticipate) them ivhich were awake ! This 
would be completely to destroy the force of his 
own statements made in order to prove that the 
converse of the proposition was untrue. He pre- 
vents the Thessalonians imagining that they who 
lived to see Christ's coming would be before-hand 
with those that were asleep, by assuring them — ■ 
that the dead would rise first ; — and that all, quick 
and dead, would be caught up together, and 
would, at one and the same time, meet their 
Lord.* " Think not, he says, that your friends 
departed are lost to you, lost to life and light, as 
the heathen think. They shall be blessed at the 
coming of Christ : yea, and be blessed as soon and 
as fully as yourselves. When you lift up your 
heads and behold your redemption drawing nigh, 
know that their redemption also is at hand. The 
trump of God shall call, and they shall answer ; 
the voice of the archangel shall summon them 
from their graves : they shall not be forgotten, 
nor left behind, but gathered from the four winds 
by angels of God, they shall take their places, 
first or last, in the joyful procession that goeth 
to meet the Bridegroom. Though the minds of 
all men naturally abhor death : though all would 
find much comfort (and inclination leads many 
to take comfort), in believing that their departed 



* Similarly, in the next chapter, he says " Christ died for us, 
that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with 
him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together." 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 273 

friends have already, without resurrection, or 
ascension, entered into their glory. St. Paul 
attempted not to console the Thessalonians with 
such words. " When Christ cometh with clouds/' 
he taught with St. John,* then " every eye shall 
see him ;" — then, and not before. " Him the 
heavens must receive until the restitution of all 
things,"f and into heaven the dead who die in the 
Lord have not as yet ascended. He is gone to 
prepare a place for them, and when he cometh 
again he will receive them to himself, that where 
he is, there may they be also. Their souls are 
now, with David's, left in Hades ; there to con- 
tinue till they put on incorruption : % but " when 
Christ, who is their life shall appear, then shall 
they also appear with him in glory." § 

The foregoing passages show that the apostles 
expected, and therefore we are to expect, no rest, 
nor glory, no vision of Christ, nor conformity to 
his image, no victory over death and the grave, 
till the blissful hour of resurrection. They prove, 
that between death and resurrection there is an 
interval, so unimportant in a Christian's eye, 
that it may be passed over as nothing. They 
show that whoever, in the spirit of St. Paul, 
desires to " depart and be with Christ," longs 
for liberation not from the burden only of the 



* Rev. i. 7. 
% Acts ii. 34. 

T 



f Acts iii. 2 1 . 
§ Col. iii. 4. 



274 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



flesh, but from that dominion of mortality, which 
shall endure till the Last Day. They therefore 
prove, that if there be a state of intermediate 
consciousness, it certainly is not so desirable a 
state for the redeemed, as it is commonly repre- 
sented to be ; and they moreover contain nothing 
to contradict, but much to confirm the language 
of the Old Testament, which pronounces the 
dead to be in a land where all things are forgot- 
ten, where' God's truth is not manifested, nor His 
righteousness known, nor His holy name praised ; 
but where men are " hidden for a little moment," 
while they "know not any thing,' 1 but "all their 
thoughts have perished.' # Even by their omis- 
sion of all mention of the intermediate state, — 
of the sojourn of the soul in Hades, in places 
where we should naturally expect them to speak 
of it, if it were indeed a state of life and con- 
sciousness, of hope or fear, joy or sorrow, they 
strongly confirm the testimony of the Jewish 
Scriptures ; but in fact the New Testament is far 
from being silent on this point. It often expressly 
speaks of Hades, | — the place or state of the de- 
parted. 

The first passages are those which relate to 



* The reader is again referred to the passages from the Old 
Testament quoted above, pp. 249 to 256. 

f In the authorized English version correctly rendered Hell ; 
from the Saxon " Helan," to cover ; and therefore signifying an 
obscure, as Hades signifies an invisible place. The future place 
of punishment is in the original Greek Gehenna, which word, 
unhappily, has not been retained in our version. Hence the 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 275 

Capernaum, — and to the Church of Christ. 
" Thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, 
shalt be brought down to Hades.*' " On this 
rock I will build my Church, and the gates of 
Hades shall not prevail against it." By the gates 
of Hades is intended the power of Hades, — in 
other words, the power of destruction. It has 
indeed been asserted, that the gates of Hades 
signify the power of Satan ; but since Hades is 
not interpreted to mean Satan, or the realm or 
dominion of Satan, in any other place in all the 
Bible, it ought not, as it need not, to be so inter- 
preted in this. Capernaum was not said to be 
exalted to heaven, because the city was admitted 
into God's kingdom above, but because she was 
then great and flourishing, and flushed with the 
" pride of life ;" and she was to be brought down, 
not into Satan's realms, but to desolation and 
destruction. Satan already reigned over her ; she 
needed not to be brought low, to fall into his 
hands ; for he is not the Prince of the power of 
the grave, but the Prince of the power of the air ; 
and if he be a Ruler of Darkness, it is the dark- 
ness of this world. Unlike Capernaum, the church 
of Christ, according to the prediction of its 



prevalent notion that the flames of hell — Gehenna — are now 
burning beneath the earth, and that devils are now occupying 
it : and hence the more deplorable error of the vulgar, who 
often suppose that our blessed Lord descended into the place of 
torment. 

It were best to reject the word "hell" altogether, and sub- 
stitute for it Hades or Gehenna. 



276 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

Founder, was never to be destroyed, but to stand 
firm alike against the assaults of Satan, and of 
unbelieving men. 

On the supposition that Hades is a region of 
life, and not necessarily either evil or good, our 
Lord's promise to his church becomes without 
meaning. As well might it have been said, " the 
power of resurrection shall not prevail against 
the Church ;" inasmuch as resurrection implies a 
change of state, and is not necessarily either a 
good or an evil : or as well might our Lord 
have said, — if Hades be a region of life — " My 
church shall never pass into a disembodied state. 1 ' 
But His words plainly declare, " An evil and 
destroying power shall not prevail." 

Let us now turn to St. Paul.* " The trumpet 
shall sound ; the dead shall be raised incorrupt- 
ible ; this mortal shall assume immortality. Then 
shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 
Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where 
is thy sting, O Hades, where is thy victory !" 
Here the apostle exults over Hades and Death 
together, because God, he knew, would on his 
appointed day rescue the souls of men from their 
dark dominion ; and make an utter end of those 
evil powers, who, in the strength of sin, had 
reigned for a time over mankind. And it would 
appear from his language that the victory of 
Hades over the soul is as complete as that of 
death. But if there be an intermediate con- 



* 1 Cor. xv. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



277 



scioimess, and for the redeemed an interval of 
most blissful rest, Hades has no victory at all. 
Death may conquer the body, but Hades, so far 
from subduing the soul, would actually liberate it 
from a heavy burden and bondage, and promote 
" the glorious liberty of the children of God." 
St. Paul however declares that Death and Hades 
now reign together : nevertheless, knowing that 
they shall hereafter be cast together into the 
" lake of fire," and that an interval of death 
and unconsciousness, to be terminated on the last 
Day, is but a momentary decease, and scarcely 
to be regarded as an evil, he anticipates the final 
triumph, and exults over them as already subdued. 
For Hades may be deemed to have no captives, 
unless she can bind them in everlasting chains. 

Departing saints are sometimes known to 
triumph, in the hour of dissolution, as if their 
victory were already won. And Christians who 
" have fought the good fight" are certainly not 
forbidden thus to triumph, although it be not 
till the Last Day that Death is swallowed up in 
victory. For the interval will not be felt ; no 
train of thought will disturb the deep sleep of the 
dead, sickening the soul with hope deferred : but 
they shall find that Scripture realized to them, 
" It is appointed unto men once to die ; — and 
after this the judgment." 

Death and Hades however are still permitted 
to reign ; and are destined to exert their destroy- 
ing power till the end of the world. At the 
opening of the " fourth seal," in the Apocalypse, 



278 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

St. John " beheld a pale horse, and his name that 
sat on him was Death, and Hades followed with 
him. And power was given to them over the 
fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword and 
with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts 
, of the earth." Here is Hades painted as one 
going forth to devour and destroy, in league with 
death. In the same book they are again coupled 
together, in their present subjection to the Son of 
Man, and in their final fate. " He hath the keys 
of Hades and Death," to unlock their dark gates 
on the predestined day ; and when he executes 
the judgments committed to him, they shall be 
together cast into the lake of fire, which is the 
second death," and be themselves destroyed. 
Shortly before this, in the vision of St. John, the 
" sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death 
and Hades (the supposed abode of living souls) 
delivered up the dead which were in them. 

Still more numerous are the passages of the 
Old Testament, wherein death and Hell, — in the 
Hebrew Scheol, in the Greek Hades, — are men- 
tioned together, not as if Hades were a pleasant 
place of refuge for the disembodied souls, the 
victims of death, but as if the two were conjoined 
in the work of destruction.* 

It cannot be pretended that Hades is the place 
or state of the body merely — or indeed of the 
body at all. While the body moulders into dust 



* See Job xxvi. 6. Prov. xv. 11, xxvii. 20. Hab. ii. 5. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



279 



and is scattered to the four winds, the soul is in 
Hades. " Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades, 
nor suffer thy Holy One to see corruption," was 
David's prophecy concerning Christ. If in any 
passage of Scripture the body should seem to be 
in Hades, it is because a locality is given to Hades 
which does not in strictness belong to it ; and it 
is then placed in the grave. Thought can have 
no locality : " one might as well say of a disem- 
bodied spirit that it is hard or heavy, or a cubic 
foot in dimensions, as to say that it is here or 
there/' Hades has no more locality than has 
Death ; though both are in Scripture occasionally 
localized, or personified. But because the body 
descends into the grave, and will rise again from 
the grave, the man, body and soul, is said to do 
the same. " All men shall rise again, with their 
bodies ;" and before resurrection the dead are 
said to " dwell in dust ;" to " sleep in the dust of 
the earth." Yet it is plain, that the instant that 
mysterious tie is severed which connects the body 
and soul, all that gave locality to mind is wholly 
lost. When therefore it is said, that on the 
return of the body to the dust, " the spirit returns 
to God who gave it," we ought not to imagine, 
as some do, an ascent of the spirit towards the 
skies ; but simply an assertion of the fact, that 
the spirit, which when given by the Creator, and 
detached, as it were, from Him, constituted a 
living creature, has now reverted back to him 
who gave it, and become, not by change of jilace, 
but of ownership, His property again. 



280 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



Yet' there are some expressions in the Scrip- 
tures, which, while one more than ordinarily fan- 
ciful writer places Hades in the sun, have led 
others to give it a locality in the centre of our 
earth. For Samuel was " brought up" when he 
appeared before Saul ; and the woman of Endor 
who raised him " saw Gods ascending out of the 
earth;" and Samuel said to Saul, " why hast thou 
disquieted me to bring me up ?" These expres- 
sions are the more remarkable, because we are 
not told, nor have we reason to believe, that the 
image of Samuel, or of the spirits who were seen 
to ascend out of the earth with him, were actually 
embodied. What then, it may be asked, did 
" ascend," if not the spirits or souls of Samuel 
and those that were with him ? The question 
may be answered by asking, What was seen, if 
not the actual bodies of Samuel and the others ? 
Certainly not their incorporeal and therefore im- 
palpable and invisible spirits : but some image or 
phantom, some shadowy likeness of forms of flesh 
and blood, which they were empowered to assume 
for the time, in order that they might be seen by 
human beings. And as they put on the appear- 
ance of forms of flesh and blood, so did they also 
rise, like bodies which had been buried below. 
And let us not overlook the fact, that from what- 
ever place or state the spirit of Samuel came, it 
was from a quiet so profound as to be disturbed 
even by that solemn appearance to Saul: not 
from a bright region of joy and activity ; but 
from darkness, silence, and slumbers of depth 
unfathomable. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



281 



Our Lord declared that as Jonah was -three 
days and three nights in the whale's belly, so 
should he himself be three days and nights in the 
heart of the earth. Here the heart of the earth 
is simply put in opposition to the belly of the 
whale, and the words do not differ essentially 
from those of the more usual prediction that our 
Lord should be three days in the grave. We 
read also that our Lord " descended into the 
lower parts of the earth.'" But no stress can be 
laid on this, inasmuch as it is not evident that 
the earth itself is not intended, which in compa- 
rison of heaven is termed, the lower (parts or 
regions,) roc xotrurspcc rr\g yv\q : as where Isaiah says, 
" Sing, O ye heavens ; shout, ye lower parts of 
the earth."* 

The mention that is occasionally made in 
Scripture of an abyss, deep, or bottomless pit, as 
the abode of certain spirits, and of the soul of 
Christ during its separation from the body, de- 
serves consideration in relation to this point. 
This abyss appears to be the same as Hades, and 
to be a place wherein spirits are confined. Hence 
proceeded the locusts of the Apocalypse, and 
perhaps also Apollyon their king, and hence also 
the beast, on whom sat the Babylonish idolatress. 
It is probably a place of confinement for spirits, 
wherein they are prevented from all exercise of 



* Ephes. iv. 9. Isaiah xliv. 23. Sc. Paul, it may be ob- 
served, is speaking- of Christ's ascension from the earth, not his 
resurrection from the dead. 



282 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



their powers. " I saw an angel come down from 
heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and 
a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on 
* # Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and 
cast him into the abyss, and shut him up and set 
a seal upon him, that he should deceive the 
nations no more." And it is the same as Hades, 
for this fate of Satan seems to be precisely that 
of the rebellious angels of St. Peter and St. Jude. # 
Moreover we know that our Lord descended into 
Hades ; and St. Paul writes , " who shall descend 
into the deep, — the abyss, — that is, to bring up 
Christ from the dead.""j" That it is a place of con- 
finement would appear also from the entreaty of 
the Legion of demons to our Lord, that he would 
allow them to go into the herd of swine, and not 
command them into the abyss. J Now the con- 
finement of a spirit seems to be the same as the 
destruction of all its consciousness ; if the mind 
be reduced to inactivity, all its thoughts perish ; 
activity being of the very essence of thought. § 
But this imprisonment in Hades, whether of the 
human soul, or of an evil spirit, need not be local, 
inasmuch as thought is not local. Strictly speak- 
ing, the spirit or soul or life of man neither moves 



* See Jude 6, 1 Peter iii. 18, and the latter part of the 
appendix to page 288. 

-J- Romans x. 6. J Luke viii. 31. 

§ Thus in Rev. xvii. 8, it is written, " The beast which thou 
sawest was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless 
pit, and go into perdition." Now if by perdition is meant ever- 
lasting punishment in the lake of fire, everlasting consciousness, 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



283 



upwards to God and heaven, nor downwards to 
the grave. The union of mind with matter alone 
can give locality ; and it is this union, imagined 
or foreseen, that has occasioned those Scriptural 
expressions — to " dwell in the dust," — to " rise 
again with their bodies. " # But these expressions 
would not have been used, this union during the 
intermediate state would not have been supposed, 
unless the condition of the disembodied soul har- 
monized with that of the body, so that, when the 
one was buried, the other also could be said to 
sleep, and to be in " a land of darkness." 

Again, we may learn something concerning 
Hades, from the fact that our blessed Lord him- 
self descended into it, and on the third day rose 
again from the dead. It is evident from Scrip- 
ture, that the death which our Lord endured did 
not wholly terminate with his passion on the 
cross. God raised him up, "having loosed the 
pains of death, because it was not possible that 
he should be holden of it." f And the heart of 
Christ was to rejoice, and his flesh to rest in hope, 
because the Father would not " leave his soul in 
Hades, nor suffer His Holy One to see corrup- 



it would seem that there is no consciousness till the beast passes 
from the abyss, and goes into perdition. The expression, " is 
not," may however merely signify, " is no longer upon earth." 
. * And to that remarkable passage above quoted — " Many 
bodies of the sleeping saints (recumbent, reclining saints J, 
arose, and came out of their graves." 
f Acts ii. 24. 



284 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

tion." Now inasmuch as it was an infinite con- 
descension in our Lord to take upon him our 
nature, and subject himself to the burden of the 
flesh, what were the pains of death to him, 
what the triumph of his resurrection, if death had 
merely relieved him of the burden of the flesh, 
and enabled his liberated soul to pass into rest 
and glory ? How was corruption obviated by his 
reassumption of that body of flesh which he had 
laid down on the Cross ? Even through this fact 
■ — that Hades was to his human soul a region of 
death, a state in which he was still suffering 
under the burden of human sins. Some are ac- 
customed to say, that the glory of the resurrection 
of the saints at the Last Day will mainly consist 
in the investiture of their souls with glorified, 
spiritual bodies. But Christ took again the body 
in which he suffered. Again, " Christ being risen 
from the dead, it is said, dieth no more ; death 
hath no more dominion over him." Death then 
had dominion over him, until he "rose again 
from the dead." But for this resurrection the 
Holy One would, like David, have seen corrup- 
tion ; corruption would have had dominion not 
over a mere frame of flesh, but over that holy 
soul in which was no sin. Christ laid down on 
the cross all that life, which his Incarnation and 
Nativity had given him, — his human body and 
soul. " I lay down my life : I have power to 
lay it down, and I have power to take it again." 

And what signify those sublime words, " I am 
he that liveth, and was dead, and behold I am 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



285 



alive for evermore."* And, "in that he died, he 
died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth 
unto God." Shall we make them mean, " I lay 
down my body ; I have power to lay it down, and 
resume it." " I am he that am embodied, and 
was disembodied, and behold I am embodied for 
evermore." " In that he parted with his body, 
he died unto sin once, but in that he hath it again, 
he liveth unto God." Rather we should believe, 
that our blessed Lord parted with his human soul ; 
parted with that life itself, whereby he now liveth. 
If his resurrection from the dead had been merely 
the taking his body again, it would have been 
no more a victory over death, than was his incar- 
nation ; or at least no more than was the creation 
of Adam from the lifeless dust of the ground. 
But Hades grasped a human soul ; and that was 
wrenched from her dark dominion. 

And so glorious was this victory over Hades, 
that in reference to this Christ is spoken of as 
the Son of God. He is termed " the first begotten 
from the dead ;" he was " declared to be the Son 
of God with power, by the resurrection from the 
dead ;" and we are told that " God hath fulfilled 
his promises of mercy, in that he hath raised up 
Jesus again ; as it is written in the second Psalm, 
4 Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten 
thee.'" Thus also, " they who are accounted 



* Rev. i. 18. 'G 4 w ^j kcu lyevofxrjv vatcpos, teal icov ^cov elfxi 
els roue aiiovas twv aiiovuv. " I am the living one, and I became 
one-that-is-dead, and behold I am living for ever." 



286 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE, 

worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection 
from the dead, cannot die any more, and are 
equal to the angels, and are the children of God, 
being the children of the resurrection :" and are 
said to "groan within themselves, waiting for the 
adoption, — to wit, the redemption of the body ;" 
for " the manifestation of the Sons of God." 

Had the victory been gained on the cross, our 
Lord's last words would have been those of exul- 
tation ; sounds of joy and triumph would have 
filled the heavens, as at the nativity ; and angels 
would have bidden the disciples to weep no more, 
cheering them as they did on the third day. 
And the bodies of the saints which slept need 
not have been detained in their graves until after 
his resurrection ; but at once appearing unto 
many, might have testified to the subjugation of 
death. 

Some persons are inclined to believe, that our 
Lord, when he entered the realms of Hades, 
entered as a conqueror ; bringing into these 
desolate shades a light and life not their own ; nay, 
proclaiming in them that gospel which his apostles 
afterwards preached on earth. They refer to the 
words of St. Peter,— " Christ was put to death in 
the flesh, but quickened in the spirit ; by the 
which also he went and preached unto the spirits 
in prison, which sometime were disobedient, 
when once the long suffering of God waited, in 
the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing." 
But all that St. Peter asserts is, that our Lord 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 287 

preached to the spirits in prison by the same 
spirit by which he was quickened; not by any 
means that he preached while he was numbered 
among the dead. And indeed, if there be meaning 
in words, the quick are not to be confounded 
with the dead; but to be " quickened" is to be 
raised again from the dead ; which happened to 
our Lord not on the cross, but on the third day 
after his crucifixion. Then it was that the 
quickening spirit of immortal life, which utterly 
abhors and is incompatible with the state of death, 
visited and reanimated his mortal soul. 

Let us consider too by what means Christ 
triumphed over death. Even by first submitting 
to death. He "tasted death for every man;" 
and "through death subdued him that had the 
power of death." He drank this bitter cup, and 
drained its very dregs, that the vials of wrath 
might not be poured out upon guilty men. What- 
ever gloom then there was in Hades before the 
advent of Christ, into that gloom he entered ; 
whatever were the " pains of death" for the worst 
of sinners, those pains he underwent ; nay, what- 
ever would have been the utmost tyranny of 
Hades and Death over men, but for his mediation, 
to that Christ for a time succumbed. By no less 
a sacrifice could he have accomplished his great 
design of subduing death, by first submitting to 
death.* To suppose that the grave was a more 



* The death to which Adam became liable through his trans- 
gression is said to be temporal, spiritual, and eternal, the latter 



288 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

lightsome place to him than it is, or would have 
been, to the worst of sinners, is to forget the price 
which was paid for redemption ; and to leave 
room for the conscience-stricken sinner to dread 
lest he should be excluded from the benefits of 
the resurrection, since so dark a death as his had 
not been undergone by the Saviour. By first 
enduring all, Christ overcame all. Not in de- 
scending into the abyss, but in ascending up on 
high, he led captivity captive. Hades did not 
acknowledge him as a conqueror till on the third 
day he broke her bonds asunder, and cast away 
her cords from him ; and mounted his eternal 
throne on "the holy hill of Sion." 

No more inappropriate season for preaching 
could possibly be imagined, than that which is 
arbitrarily chosen for the publication of the gos- 
pel to the " imprisoned spirits." That they were 
in Hades at the time we have indeed ample rea- 
son to believe ; but they were then as it were in 
the condemned cells, beyond the reach of reprieve, 
and waiting till they should be summoned from 
the bottomless pit, to go into perdition.* 

The doctrine of redemption through Christ's 



being sometimes held to include the suffering of eternal fire. 
But erroneously, for not only is the latter punishment a con- 
sequence of resurrection unto damnation, not of death ; but, 
had this been a part of the original curse, our Lord, we may 
venture to believe, must have descended into the flames of 
Gehenna itself, in order to rescue man, by " tasting of death 
for him." 

* See Appendix. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 289 

suffering of death, as well as the express language 
of the New Testament concerning Hades, con- 
firms that testimony of the Jewish Scriptures 
which makes of Hades a land of darkness, and 
where all things are forgotten ; a place wherein 
(while " the living know that they shall die") the 
dead " know not any thing." Spirits condemned 
and under confinement, — the souls of men while 
subject to the dominion of death, — and the proud 
city that was to sink to utter ruin and desolation, 
are alike said to be cast down to Hades, because 
they are all alike subjected to the Power of De- 
struction, have gone into darkness, silence, and 
death ; and have become as though they were 
not.* But still their souls are safe, still they live 
unto God, who have died in faith ; even in the 
faith of Abraham, whose belief was " in God, 
who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things 
which be not, as though they were."f 



* We may be permitted to indulge in the speculation, that 
possibly spirits in Hades are conscious, though the souls of men 
are not so. For they are of an angelic nature ; of that nature 
which men shall partake of after the resurrection ; and, though 
fallen through sin, it may perhaps be true of them, that " they 
cannot die any more." 

And possibly also, they who are raised unto damnation may 
continue in being, unable to die any more, through their receiving 
the spirit of Satan and his angels into their souls ; — even as the 
redeemed are immortal, through the good Spirit of God. 

\ Romans iv. 16, 17. The second, the spiritual creation 
shall in this respect resemble the first, the material creation. 
God, who formed the earth out of nothing, and called unto the 
as yet uncreated light, saying " Light, Be, and the light was," 
shall again send forth His Spirit, to brood over the abyss of 

U 



290 



CHAPTER V. 

THE INTERMEDIATE STATE CONTINUED. 

IT yet remains for us to consider some passages 
of the New Testament which have been much 
relied on in proof of an intermediate state of 
consciousness. Our Saviour thus exhorts his dis- 
ciples ; " Fear not them which kill the body, but 
are not able to kill the soul : but rather fear him, 
who is able to destroy both soul and body in 
hell;" that is, "in Gehenna." "What," asks 
an eminent divine, " can be more clear ? If the 
soul had such a necessary dependence on the 
body, that when this dies itself must needs die 
with it, then he that kills the body would with 
the same stroke murder the soul too. But our 
Saviour tells us that this is impossible for man to 
do, the soul remaining even after the death of 
the body, and being out of the reach of any created 
power, that is able to destroy it. If it be said 
that this is meant only of the utter destruction of 
the soul, which no man is able to effect, God 
having promised a resurrection to life again, this 
will appear to be only a wretched shift to avoid 
the force of the plainest text. For in this sense 



Hades, and cause it to " bring forth abundantly ;" shall command 
life to be, where as yet there is no life, making the deaf hear 
His voice, the blind see His glory, the dumb speak His praise. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 29 1 

our Saviour might as well have denied that it is 
in the power of man to kill the body of another 
man, that is, to destroy it utterly and finally, 
because God will raise it again at the last day. 
But our blessed Lord grants, that the body may 
be killed by man in the same sense whereby he 
denies that the soul can be destroyed by him, and 
therefore speaks not this only with reference to 
the resurrection." 

It may nevertheless be fairly maintained, con- 
sistently with the view of the future states which 
has been advocated above, that our Lord is here 
speaking with reference to the resurrection only ; 
and wholly passes over without notice the interval 
between death and judgment. Shortly after, in 
the same discourse, he prepares his disciples to 
bear persecution, by a similar mode of encourage- 
ment. " He that findeth his life shall lose it, and 
he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." 
And in another place, to exactly the same pur- 
pose, " He that loveth his life shall lose it, and 
he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it 
unto life eternal." These passages sufficiently 
explain what is meant by " not able to kill the 
soul." Dr. Bull believed that the soul of the 
renegade, as well as the soul of the martyr, lives 
after the death of the body. But if so, what is 
meant by " he that loveth his life shall lose it f" 
Even on Dr. Bulls supposition, it must signify, 
• not the loss of life in the intermediate state, 
wherein good and bad men alike live, but the 
destruction of the soul in Gehenna. Because 



292 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

man cannot effect this, it is said that he is unable 
to "kill the soul." Agreeably with that doctrine, 
implied in almost every page of the New Testa- 
ment, — " it is appointed unto men once to die, 
and after this the judgment," — they are said to 
lose, or to keep their lives, in reference to the de- 
struction which will be inflicted, or the immortality 
which will be conferred on the soul, on that awful 
day. 

St. Luke reports the words of our Lord some- 
what differently. " Be not afraid of them that 
kill the body, and after that have no more that 
they can do ; but I will forewarn you whom ye 
shall fear ; Fear Him, who after he hath killed 
hath power to cast into Gehenna ; yea, I say 
unto you, Fear Him." Here there is no allusion 
to an interval between death and judgment ; and 
not only they who have killed the body have no 
more that they can do, but God himself, it appears, 
doth nothing, until the day arrive for the execu- 
tion of his judgements. Throughout all these 
passages the things contrasted are, life temporal, 
and life eternal ; death temporal, and death 
eternal, — and we are not to fear them which kill 
the body, or inflict temporal death ; but Him 
only who can kill the soul, or inflict eternal 
death. 

Dr. Bull however maintains, as we have seen 
above, that since the bodies of the wicked rise 
again, men can no more be said to be able to 
kill the body than to kill the soul ; except in 
reference to the different states of the soul and 



OX THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 293 

body before resurrection. If the resurrection of 
the wicked unto damnation were in Scripture 
represented as a temporary return to life, this 
argument would be unanswerable. But the bodies 
even of saints are in Scripture termed mortal 
bodies, and may be killed : though the Almighty 
can and will at the last day quicken them by His 
spirit. The temporal life of a sinner being taken 
away, nothing remains but for him to be " cast 
into hell ;" while the temporal life of the righte- 
ous being lost, he still " hath eternal life," in that 
he has the promise not given to the sinner ; " I 
will raise him up at the Last Day." And so St. 
Paul laboured ; — " if by any means he might 
attain unto the resurrection of the dead."* 

" That the soul is alive after our death," says 
Jeremy Taylor, " St. Paul affirms : ' Christ died 
for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should 
live together with him.' Now it were strange 
that we should be alive and live with Christ, and 
do no act of life." Strange indeed : but Christ 
died for us, and rose again, that we through death 
and resurrection might have that eternal life. 
Then, when we rise, he will " come again and 



* Whatever obscurity and difficulty there may be in the sub- 
ject here treated of, it arises from the singular use in Scripture, 
of the terms life and death. To kill the body, and send the soul 
into Hades, a suffering which may be inflicted on the righteous 
as well as the sinner, and to destroy the body and soul in the 
flames of Gehenna, are both called in Scripture, Death. The 
temporal existence common to all, no less than the spiritual and 
eternal existence of saints in heaven, is termed Life. 



294 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

receive his disciples to himself, that where he is, 
there may they he also : then shall they, and not 
before, " ever he with the Lord." 

That there is an intermediate consciousness 
has sometimes been collected from the account of 
the translations of Enoch and Elijah, and the 
appearance of the latter, with Moses, at the trans- 
figuration of our Lord. The former of which facts, 
it shall nevertheless be said, does most strongly 
point to a conclusion directly opposite, which the 
difficulty concerning Moses cannot reverse, but at 
the utmost merely neutralize or obscure. Enoch, 
we are told, " walked with God ; and he was 
not, for God took him" and this St. Paul explains 
by saying that Enoch " was translated, that he 
should not see death." Here to be taken to God, 
and to die, are represented as directly opposite 
things. Enoch was saved from Hades, from the 
power of corruption, from the state of " the dead 
who cannot praise the Lord ;" and admitted to 
his presence in heaven. Of Elijah we learn that 
he likewise " was taken up into heaven," without 
seeing death, without any dissolution of the body, 
or banishment of the soul to Hades. In both of 
these cases, undoubtedly, the translation to heaven 
was a great and a singular reward for singular piety 
and devotedness. Yet if, apart from resurrection 
and ascension into heaven, it be, as some believe, 
a great privilege to be delivered from the burden 
of the flesh ; a privilege involving nearer com- 
munion with God, what advantage had Enoch or 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 295 

Elijah ? And how can it be said, that God took 
them, rather than any other departed saints ? It 
may be said, that they were at once admitted to 
that superior blessedness which God will confer 
on all his saints when their bodies are raised in 
glory at the Last Day. # But the account of 
Elijah's appearance at the transfiguration pre- 
cludes this idea. It is true that our Saviour's 
appearance at that time was such as to give the 
three favoured disciples some conception of his 
future glory. For it was the fulfilment of his 
promise made a week previously, " There be 
some standing here which shall not taste of death, 
till they see the Son of Man coming in his king- 
dom." And St. Peter says in reference to the 
wonderful scene, " We have not followed cun- 
ningly devised fables, when we made known to 
you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, but were eye witnesses of his majesty." 
But still it is plain that his full glory and majesty 
was not then revealed, even to the chosen disci- 
ples. For St. John writes, " we know not what 
we shall be ; but we know that when Christ shall 
appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him 
as he is." And this though St. John had beheld 
Christ not only at his transfiguration, but also in 
those greater splendours which he records in the 
book of Revelation ; and though St. Paul, who 



* Not that this is exactly in accordance with Scripture, which 
represents their privilege as consisting specially in exemption 
from death. 



296 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



had ample intercourse with the other apostles, 
had been favoured with repeated visions of Christ. 
It is plain then that though the glorious appear- 
ance which our Lord put on was, in conjunction 
with the voice of approval from heaven, a suffi- 
cient proof and manifestation of the glories of his 
future kingdom, yet it was not a full display of 
them. Jesus indeed " was not yet glorified ;" he 
had not as yet " ascended into heaven that he 
might fill all things ;" nor testified that " all 
power was given unto him in heaven and in 
earth." It is not to be supposed then that they 
who appeared with him had as yet received their 
full glory. It would therefore be difficult for 
those who believe in an intermediate conscious- 
ness to say in what respect these persons were in 
a more favoured state than other departed saints. 
And though any one is at liberty to conjecture 
that some superior degree of blessedness was 
conferred on Enoch and Elijah, the declaration 
concerning the former, " He was not, for God 
took him" — seem to imply a difference not in 
degree but in kind, between the fate of Enoch 
and that of the rest of the dead. For if it be 
contended, that God " took" Enoch and Elijah, 
without death ; but that this does not forbid us 
to believe that he "takes" others, to a similar 
reward, after their death ; we may reply by asking 
— On this supposition, how does it appear from 
Genesis that Enoch did not die ? The children 
of Rachel "were not," when they were taken 
from their mother by death ; and therefore when 




ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 297 

it is written that Enoch " was not," this would 
rather show that he departed this life in the ordi- 
nary way. We can learn that he was translated 
only from the words, " God took him." 

When however the question arises, Whence, 
from what blisful region did Elijah come, in what 
form did he appear, much, and indeed insuper-^: 
able difficulty arises from the appearance of Moses 
with him. For Moses was not translated that he 
should not see death ; he died upon Mount Nebo. 
His appearance with Elijah might indeed lead us 
to conclude that both came from the same world 
or state, and that the condition of Enoch and 
Elijah therefore differed not at all from that of 
the rest of the blessed dead, who die in the Lord. 
But this notion is wholly incompatible with the 
fact, that while the translation ofjthe former was 
a reward, the death of Moses was a punishment. 
Yet how could it be a privation to Moses to be 
admitted, rather than to the earthly Canaan, to 
the heaven of Enoch and Elijah ? And how can 
we suppose that the disembodied spirit of Moses, 
dwelling in Hades, enjoyed the same life (if life at 
all), as they, whose especial reward was that they 
should not see death ; but who were raised, body 
and soul, to some heavenly region ? Surely it is 
probable that Moses and Elias came from different 
regions ; had been in different states. We are 
not told whether the two wore similar forms. ; 
But the power which called Moses' spirit from 
the grave could render him visible to the eye, 
for a special purpose, as was Samuel at En- 

l.l-f ^ t 




298 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



dor.* Such similarity of aspect decides nothing with 
respect to the condition of their souls. It is in 
the very highest degree improbable that a dis- 
embodied soul in Hades should be in the same 
state as the soul which was raised to heaven, and 
had never dwelt, as far as we have reason to be- 
lieve, in any other than a corporeal habitation.")* 

If however any one is inclined to conclude, 
from his appearance at the transfiguration, that 
Moses was honoured after death with translation 
into the heaven of Enoch and Elijah, this will by 
no means render it probable that other departed 
saints enjoy a similar blessedness to that of these 
distinguished servants of God. 

This conclusion is strengthened by the accounts 
which the Scriptures have given us concerning 
the miraculous raising of the dead. For nothing 
can be collected from these accounts to show, or 
even faintly suggest, that the souls of the persons 
raised were summoned from a world of conscious- 
ness. They appear to have awakened as from a 
profound and dreamless sleep. If they had been 



* " The soul separate from the body is not an object of sight 
(since at a man's death all that was formerly visible of him re- 
mains before our eyes in the corpse), so that nothing can be 
inferred respecting a separate state of the soul, from the visible 
appearance of Moses and Elias, which the apostles witnessed/ — 
Lectures on a Future State. That is, nothing can be inferred 
from the fact of their visibility ; though we may nevertheless 
draw conjectures from the fact of their then consciousness. 

T " The spirit of Moses was probably made visible only by 
an assumed vehicle for that purpose." Dr. Watts' Essay to- 
wards the proof of a separate state of souls. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 299 

recalled from the heaven of Enoch and Elijah, 
would they have foreborne to speak of it ; to re- 
veal somewhat concerning this glorious state or 
place of the dead ? Yet tradition, full of fond and 
vain fictions as it is, does not even profess to 
record a revelation of this kind ; nor even offer 
us as genuine one single testimony, by any of 
these persons, in proof of an intermediate con- 
sciousness. 

Further ; it would be hard to imagine in what 
way resurrection could be a blessing, or indeed 
how it could be other than a severe trial and afflic- 
tion, except on the supposition that the dead are, 
literally, " in a land where all things are for- 
gotten." Let us turn to the case of Lazarus. 
He " slept ;" and our Saviour proceeded to 
Bethany, to " awake him out of sleep." Did this 
mean, to summon his soul from the lower heavens ; 
nay, as some would suppose, from the society of 
angels, and just men made perfect, and bring it 
back to reoccupy its frail tenement of clay in this 
world of sorrow and sin ? Surely this would be 
consistent neither with the words, nor the gra- 
cious design of our Saviour. 

If it be objected that St. Paul has said, " to die 
is gain ;" this can be equally well explained 
either on the supposition of an intermediate con- 
sciousness, or of a momentary hiding in the grave 
until the indignation be overpast : while, on the 
other hand, the apparent discordance between the 
the words of St. Paul, and the fact of our Lords 
raising the dead, is certainly the less, when we 



300 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



adopt the supposition that they were raised from 
a state of mental torpor. 

We will now turn to a passage on which great 
stress is laid by nearly every writer upon the 
subject of the intermediate state, though they do 
not all agree as to the conclusion to be drawn 
from it. In order to confute the Sadducees, who 
denied the resurrection, our Lord asks, " As 
touching the dead that they rise, have ye not 
read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God 
spake unto him saying, I am the God of Abra- 
ham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of 
Jacob ? He is not the God of the dead, but the 
God of the living : ye therefore do greatly err."* 
" Our Saviours argument," says Dr. Jortin, in 
his Doctrine of a Future State, " in the opinion 
of several, seems rather directly to prove a future 
state, or another life, or rather the permanency 
of the soul, than a resurrection by which a dead 
man shall become a living man again. But as 
the Sadducees, who denied a resurrection, denied 
also that the soul was a living principle distinct 
from the body, our Lord, say they, by proving 
the permanency of the soul, or of the person, 
overset the foundation of their pernicious doc- 
trine. But it seems most probable f that our 
Lord intended to convince the Sadducees of the 
doctrine of the resurrection of the dead ; and it 



* Mark xii. 26, 27. 

f Might he not have said, It is most certain ? 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 301 

was a good argumentum ad hominem. Abraham, 
in your opinion, is dead and perished ; but God 
calls himself the God, that is the protector and 
rewarder of Abraham, after he was dead ; there- 
fore he will raise him again to a state of happi- 
ness. What could a Sadducee have replied to 
this ? He could not say that God might reward 
the soul of Abraham, without raising him from 
the dead. By doing so he must have given up 
[part of] his own system. 

" This argument of our Saviour, though it will 
not prove an intermediate state of happiness, yet, 
on the other hand, will not prove the sleep, or 
insensibility, or non-existence of the soul during 
that interval." 

This candid avowal of Jortin's has proved by 
no means satisfactory to most other advocates of 
an intermediate consciousness. Dr. Bull says 
" the Sadducees denied the subsistence of the 
spirits of men after death, and therefore denied 
the resurrection of their bodies : and if they 
could have been convinced of the former, they 
would readily have acknowledged the latter also." 
And this view has been generally adopted by 
writers on the same side who hold, as Dr. Jortin 
has stated, that our Lord's argument proves 
rather the permanency of the soul, than the re- 
surrection of the body. 

Yet nothing can well be more plain, than that 
our Lord's argument was intended to prove the 
resurrection of the body ; and even if we were 
meanly to consider it merely as an argumentum 



302 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



ad hominem, intended for the Sadducees alone,* it 
would be totally inconclusive, if it went to prove 
the consciousness of the dead ; — if they were to 
be regarded as experiencing God's protection, — 
as being in fact not dead but living. 

It is absurd to say that the Sadducees would 
allow that their antagonist, — for as such they 
esteemed Jesus, — had proved the resurrection 
of the dead, by proving the permanency or con- 
sciousness of the soul. The permanency of the 
soul was matter of popular heathen belief, as well 
as a favourite philosophical tenet ; and yet it 
" seemed a thing incredible with them, that God 
should raise the dead ;" a thing which merited 
to be received with mockery. f Men who have 
just been defeated on one point, are not therefore 
the more likely to yield another, which is not 
necessarily dependent on the former. 

The words which God spake to Moses at the 
bush afford, as we maintain, no proof whatever 
of resurrection, except on the supposition that 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and other departed 
servants of God, are not now experiencing the 
truth of God's assurance that He would be their 
God. For if this promise be realized to them 



* That it was by no means intended only for the Sadducees 
may be fairly gathered from the fact, that it proved convincing 
to the common people ; who were " astonished at his doctrine ;" 
as well as to certain of the scribes, who would scarcely have 
deemed Jesus to have " spoken well," had not his argument 
been convincing to their own minds. 

f Acts xxvi. 8, and xvii. 32. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



303 



now, their resurrection can be in nowise necessary 
to its fulfilment.* If we believe that the Al- 
mighty, in order to verify His words, not only 
took the disembodied souls of those patriarchs 
into His especial keeping, but also conferred on 
them such consciousness and bliss as to prove to 
them that he was still as truly their God as before, 
we entirely lose our proof, ' 6 as touching the dead, 
that they rise." 



* " To a faithful Jew," says Mr. Isaac Williams, " such an 
express intimation of God's love and care would convey a 
stronger conviction of a future state, than any mere texts of 
Holy Writ which declared it ; as the whole of it depended on 
practical conviction, not on speculative proof. It was the un- 
certainty of the 'proof on which the greatness of their faith 
depended. The higher the faith of the patriarchs was, the more 
thoroughly would they have reposed on any expression of God's 
favour ; thinking not, and perhaps not caring for any distinct 
explanation of the mode in which that favour would be conferred 
on them." — Introduction to the Gospels, p. 155. 

Firm faith must have a solid basis. The greatness of faith 
is shown in relying on that which is certain in itself in spite of 
attendant discouragements : in steering boldly amid darkness 
by the polar star. But if it were uncertain whether the star 
were polar, the mariner might be pardoned for doubting of his 
course. The Sadducees were culpable, because God's word, 
with sufficient plainness, "told them, and they believed not." 
But even admitting that it is the glory of faith to rest on uncer- 
tainties, (to believe, rather than know, on what we have 
believed) it does not follow, that our Lord would prefer an un- 
certain text ; for the error of the Sadducees was most strongly 
condemned by those which were plainest. 

And to say that the faithful Jews thought and cared nothing 
about the mode in which God's favour should be conferred on 
them is. just to admit that they thought and cared nothing about, 
i. e. did not, on any grounds whatever, believe in, the resurrec- 
tion of the body. 



304 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



There would never have been any dispute 
about the import of this " famous passage," had 
not men been perversely bent upon discovering 
in it a demonstration of that intermediate con- 
sciousness to which it is decidedly hostile. 

Our Lord's argument is evidently this : All 
dead men (or at least air who have died in faith) 
will rise again from the dead. For those dead 
men, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, will rise from 
the dead. For God has declared himself to be 
their God, — their shield, and their exceeding 
great reward, — and he is not the God of the dead, 
but of the living. Now Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob are as yet numbered among the dead : but 
they must surely live again, to rejoice in the God 
of the living : or else the word of God would be un- 
fulfilled. And to live again, they must rise again. 
To maintain that He is the God of those dead 
men who are departed out of this world, would 
not only completely destroy the proof of the 
resurrection, but confound the distinction between 
the dead and the living, invariably maintained in 
Scripture, and nowhere more plainly than in this 
passage at the bush. When the disciples came 
to seek Jesus at the sepulchre wherein his body 
had been laid, the angel of the Lord said unto 
them, " Why seek ye the living among the dead? 
he is not here, but he is risen :" implying that 
until Jesus rose he was not living. And so Isaiah 
said long before, " Thy dead men shall live, to- 
gether with my dead body shall they arise." But 
it is needless to multiply examples. 



OX THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



305 



It may perhaps be said that the words of our 
Lord recorded by St. Luke do remove the distinc- 
tion just contended for, between the living' and the 
dead. " For he is not a God of the dead, but of 
the living ; for all live unto him." If we suppose 
this to mean, that in Gods sight there is no such 
thing as death, we again lose our proof of the 
resurrection from the dead. " Unto him," with 
whom a thousand years are as one day, and all 
future eternity is present, all they may well be 
said to " live," who, when their momentary hiding 
in the grave is past, will live for all eternity. 
They may for a while be unconscious of God : 
but God is not unmindful of them. He has ap- 
pointed a set time, at which he will remember 
them, and have a desire unto the work of his 
hands. Their unconsciousness, for however long 
an interval, does not falsify the divine word. If 
our Lord was the God of Abraham, while he 
slept through one night in unconsciousness, He 
is the God of Abraham no less, though he sleep 
through ten thousand years.* " O God, Thou 
art my God" the faithful Jew might say, "for 
ever will I trust in Thee ! Thou wilt not leave 



* It should be observed that, for aught we know, a few moments 
of unconsciousness may occur not unfrequently in the course of 
the waking hours of every one. There are some mental and 
nervous affections in which consciousness is suspended for con- 
siderable intervals, and yet, when consciousness returns, the 
current of ideas flows on as if no break had taken place. Yet 
God ceaseth not to be the God of these persons. Bishop Butler 
and others admit that the mind may be unconscious for a time. 

X 



306 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

nor forsake me. But shall Thy loving kindness 
be shown in the grave, Thy faithfulness in de- 
struction ? Not so : for thou art not the God of 
the dead. Thy power, Thy truth, Thy faithful- 
ness, shall be manifested in redeeming my soul 
from the grave ; and then wilt thou be indeed 
my God, when thou hast given this mortal 
immortality." 

And wherefore did God please to declare him- 
self Abraham's God ? " Here," says St. Paul, 
" we have no continuing city, but we seek that 
which is to come." Abraham too, " sojourned in 
the land of promise, as in a strange country, 
dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the 
heirs with him of the same promise : for he looked 
for a city which hath foundations, whose builder 
and maker is God." And these patriarchs, we 
read, died in faith, " desiring a better country, 
that is, a heavenly : wherefore God is not ashamed 
to be called their God, for he hath prepared for 
them a city." 

The admission of Abraham, and of all believers 
into this city is as yet future ; for God hath not 
built it in Hades below, in the present dwelling- 
place of the dead, but prepared it in heaven 
above, for the blessed and merciful who shall 
inherit the kingdom at the Last Day. When 
the heavens and earth have passed, it shall come 
down out of heaven from God, who will then, 
and not before, have His tabernacle with men, 
and dwell among them. Then, and not while 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 307 

they are dead, " God himself shall be with them ; 

AND BE THEIR GOD."* 

We may now turn to the consideration of a 
passage on which far more stress is laid, than on 
our Lord's confutation of the Sadducees, — and 
certainly with much better reason : the parable 
of Dives and Lazarus. The entire weight of the 
argument in favour of an intermediate conscious- 
ness, to be derived from this parable, depends 
of course upon the supposition that it is intended 
to contain a revelation concerning the unseen 
world. But it is an objection to this at the out- 
set, that no other of our Lord's parables contains 
a revelation, except in respect of its secondary 
meaning. The parable, for instance, of the 
wheat and tares conveys indeed a revelation, in 
respect of the gathering of the elect, and the fiery 
destruction of the wicked; but none whatever 
concerning husbandry. It might be urged how- 
ever with truth, that in the parable of Dives and 
Lazarus even the primary meaning relates to the 
unseen world, to spiritual things, which is not 
the case in any other parable ; and that to sup- 
pose it to convey a revelation is merely to suppose 
that, in common with all or most other parables, 
it conveys in its primary meaning, a statement of 
actual, or at least of possible events. All the 
other parables, it must be admitted, contain state- 



* See Rev. xxi. 1, 2, 3. 



308 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



ments of possible events : but it is nevertheless 
highly improbable, and it is not generally be- 
lieved, that they speak of actual facts. The 
mode of instruction by parables was customary 
before it was adopted by our Lord ; and it is 
employed in Syria at this day, without any in- 
tention of conveying information otherwise than 
by the secondary meaning : and if the parables 
are in general true also in the primary meaning, 
this is merely because parabolic illustrations are 
best borrowed from the most common and familiar 
events available for the purpose. 

We are then reduced to the alternative of sup- 
posing, either that this parable contains far more 
than any other, — in conveying a revelation in its 
primary meaning ;* or somewhat less, in speaking 
of things which could not happen, where other 
parables speak of things which very probably did 
not happen ; and concerning which things, (whe- 
ther they had happened or not) our Lord had 
no intention to convey any new information what- 
ever. — Which of the two should we prefer? 

Some have preferred the former, because the 
Jews, as they maintain, must necessarily have so 
understood the parable ; inasmuch as, in our 
Lord's time, they commonly believed that " the 
souls of the faithful, when they die, are by the 
ministry of angels conducted to Paradise. "f "If 



* It may be fairly questioned, whether a passage thus conveying, 
as is supposed, a double revelation, ought to be called a parable. 
\ See Bull's Sermons. On the Doctrine of the Middle State. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 309 

this had been an erroneous opinion of the Jews," 
says Bishop Bull, " doubtless our Saviour would 
never have given any the least countenance to 
it." But let us consider whence the Jews derived 
this notion of a Paradise, or Garden of Eden ? 
Nothing is said in their Scriptures of any such 
place — except that from which Adam was expelled. 
Either they expected a return to this, as is most 
probable ; or to some place, answering to the 
Elysian fields of the Greeks, — and as unreal. 
But the Paradise of Adam, and the Paradise of 
the Book of Revelations, is the fit place of abode, 
not for mere spirits, but for actual living men, 
for embodied souls. 

And we must consider the details of the parable 
itself ; in order to judge whether our Lord in- 
tended to confirm the cabalistic notions of the 
Jews, and authenticate them as containing a doc- 
trine worthy of general acceptation. 

Whatever expectations we might have been 
inclined to entertain before-hand, the parable 
cannot contain a revelation. For it is altogether 
inconsistent with what we know both from Scrip- 
ture and observation, concerning the intermediate 
state, — and also with what is revealed concerning 
the Day of Judgement. In the intermediate state 
men are disembodied. How then can we literally 
understand the petition of Dives, that Lazarus 
might u dip the tip of his finger in water, and 
cool his tongue ?" Whence the water, the finger, 
the tongue ? Are we to go the length of sup- 
posing that men are to occupy temporary bodies 



310 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

before the resurrection ? and that on their depar- 
ture from this world they shall have a local, as 
well as mental, existence ? And how can we 
place all the righteous literally in Abraham's 
bosom ? Yet the parable makes this the position 
of Lazarus ! Dives " seeth Abraham afar off, and 
Lazarus in his bosom ;" and beholding him there 
(and, as it appears, seeing no one else) begs Abra- 
ham to send him to his aid. 

Whence too the solicitude of Dives about his 
brethren, when in "the land where all things, 
{at least all earthly things,) are forgotten?" How 
can Dives pray to Abraham for help, when in the 
land, wherein is no work, nor device, nor know- 
ledge ? 

Dives we are told was in hell, called Hades, 
indeed, but represented as a place of torment and 
of flame. But are the flames of hell, whatever 
kind of torment the words may portend, already 
burning? Is there another hell besides that to 
which the wicked shall be consigned, when, as 
we are told in a passage not parabolical, the 
words shall be uttered, " Depart, ye cursed, into 
the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and 
his angels." " Art thou come hither to torment 
us before the time," inquired the evil spirits of 
Jesus. Their time then has not yet arrived. 
And the " angels that sinned" are simply en- 
chained in Hades, and reserved for the judgement 
of the Great Day. Is there a separate and pre- 
vious hell, for the wicked of human birth ? At 
the end of the world, we know, they will be 



OX THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 311 

punished along with evil spirits, in the fire pre- 
pared for the latter. Let us rather believe that 
the meeting of the blessed with Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, with the general assembly and church 
of the first-born, and with the spirits of just men 
made perfect, and with an innumerable company 
of angels ; and the meeting also of the cursed 
with legions of evil spirits, will take place at the 
end of the world. 

From the occurrences which will then take 
place, the imagery of this parable is borrowed ; 
being merely, as it were, ante-dated, for the sake 
of the moral application. Its import will be best 
understood by considering the moral lesson which 
it is intended to convey. If men hear not Moses 
and the prophets, (and still more, if they disobey 
Christ and his apostles,) neither would they be 
persuaded, though one rose from the dead. No 
more forcible method of inculcating this truth 
could well be imagined, than by supposing a 
dialogue between a tormented sinner and the 
father of the faithful, concerning the sending a 
messenger back from the grave. If we are to 
accept the parable as a revelation, we must accept 
every part, every detail. We must suppose it to 
contain a precisely accurate description of Hades, 
and a correct historical narrative. We must 
believe that all the wicked are tormented in flame, 
before the Judgement Day ; that they have 
tongues which burn with heat ; that they see 
Abraham and the rest of the righteous very 
plainly ; that they (occasionally at least) are 



312 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



ignorant till Abraham informs them of it, of the 
great gulf between the regions of happiness and 
misery ; that across this gulf they can converse 
with ease, etc. ! and all this, though they have 
" gone down into silence ;" and are in " a land 
of darkness, as darkness itself." 

Some persons may reply, that the accounts 
which scripture has given us of the world to 
come contain imagery of different and indeed 
opposite kinds : but that notwithstanding this, 
instead of rejecting those accounts, we are to 
understand them, in general, as literally as we 
can. An objection more specious than just. 
For though this principle of interpretation is to 
be applied to mere general descriptions, it is in- 
applicable to narratives like that in the parable 
of Dives and Lazarus, in which the details cannot 
be true at all, unless in a literal sense. Several pas- 
sages of Scripture represent the wicked as suffering 
from fire ; which when literally understood, im- 
plies the probable presence of light ; while other 
accounts represent them as in outer darkness, as 
involved in "the blackness of darkness for ever." 
But there is no difficulty in reconciling these 
accounts by understanding the former to speak 
of the sufferings of the wicked, the latter of their 
being wholly cut off from Him who "is light," 
and in whom is " no darkness at all." But the 
tip of the finger, the water, the tongue, the flame, 
etc., in the parable, are either wholly imaginary, 
or are literally existing in Hades. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



313 



St. Pauls declaration that " we are come to the 
New Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of 
angels, to the general assembly and church of the 
first-born, and to the spirits of just men made 
perfect " has sometimes been held to indicate an 
intermediate consciousness. Thus Dr. Watts ar- 
gues, in his " World to come." " The Gospel or 
the Christian state brings good men into a nearer 
union and communion with the heavenly world and 
the inhabitants thereof, than the Jewish state could 
do. The inhabitants of this upper world, this 
heavenly Jerusalem, are here reckoned up : God 
as the prime Lord or Head ; Jesus the Mediator 
as the King of his Church ; the innumerable 
company of angels as ministers of his kingdom ; 
the general assembly of God's favourites or chil- 
dren, who are called the first-born ; — which may 
perhaps refer in general to all the saints of all 
ages past, and to come, whose names are written 
in the Book of Life in heaven ; and particularly 
to the spirits of just men who are departed from 
this world, and are made perfect in the heavenly 
state. # # # It has been objected," continues Dr. 
Watts, "that the spirits of the just are not yet 
made perfect in heaven, because the apostle says, 
' These all,' i. e. the saints of the Old Testament, 
* having obtained a good report through faith, 
received not the promises ; God having provided 
some better things for us, that they without us 
should not be made perfect.' Now these had been 
dead for many generations, yet they received not 
the promises, nor were made perfect. Thus saith 



314 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

the objection. But the evident meaning is, that 
they lived and died in the faith of many promises, 
some of which were to be fulfilled, after their 
days, here on earth, but were not fulfilled in their 
life-time : they did not enjoy Gospel blessings in 
that perfect manner in which we do since the 
Messiah has come, and, by offering himself, 4 per- 
fected for ever them that are sanctified.' " * 

In the sense which Dr. Watts has here given 
to the word, just men now on earth are as truly 
e< perfected" as those spirits which he imagines to 
be so in an intermediate state. When it is said 
that they who are sanctified are u perfected," it is 
plainly meant that (though they are still required 
to go on unto a further " perfection,") yet in as 
far as their redemption depends on, or rather 
consists in, the shedding of the blood of Christ, 
it is a work perfectly accomplished. But in 
general they are said to be "perfected," who have 
received their " perfect consummation and bliss, 
both in body and soul, in God's eternal and ever- 
lasting glory ;" who have obtained all that God 
has promised to bestow. In this sense, as the 
context proves, the spirits of the just will be 
found to be perfected, when we, who are now 
emulating them on earth, are admitted, at the 
Last Day, into their joyful society. For the 
promises, which they are not to receive without 
us,f are as yet future ; are not to be realised, as 
Dr. Watts maintains, either on earth, by those 

* Heb. x. 14. f Heb. xi. 39, 40. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 315 

who live under the gospel dispensation, or by 
disembodied spirits in the intermediate state ; but 
by the saints of the old, not without those of the 
new dispensation, in heaven itself, after the Great 
Judgement-day. For St. Paul is plainly referring 
to that rest, (in the heavenly Canaan, the New 
Jerusalem,) which yet " remaineth for the people 
of God ;" a rest, promised to the Jews, but to 
them in common with the whole Christian com- 
munity of believing children of Abraham. In 
this view he says, shortly after, " Ye have need 
of patience, that after ye have done the will of 
God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a 
little while, and he that shall come will come, and 
will not tarry."* We then who are now living 
by faith, under the Gospel dispensation, have not 
received the promises, nor are as yet made per- 
fect, nor shall be perfected until Christ comes. 

It is indeed abundantly plain that the " pro- 
mises" spoken of in the epistle to the Hebrews 
are all to be realised at the resurrection. The 
thing promised is " a city which hath foundations, 
whose builder and maker is God." And this 
city does not mean, as Dr. Watts supposes, that 
Christian Church, or that Gospel dispensation, 
which was established by the Messiah at his first 
advent. For they who died in faith, not having 
received the promises, sought (not merely spiritual 
privileges such as might be enjoyed in common 
by just men made perfect in earth, with just men 



* Heb. x. 36, 37. 



316 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

made perfect in heaven, but) emphatically, a 
66 heavenly country." Their hope was " to obtain 
a happy resurrection :" to enter and enjoy " a 
kingdom which cannot be moved" after the re- 
moval of the present heavens and earth. Here 
they had not, nor have we, any continuing city ; 
but we are still to seek, even as they sought, one 
which is " to come." 

In the same view said St. Paul,* I sacrifice all 
things, " if by any means I might attain unto the 
resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had 
already attained, either were already perfected"^ 
But he pressed forward, that he might obtain the 
prize, even that crown of righteousness which the 
Last Day should bring him. 

We are come to the spirits of the just made 
perfect, and to the other concomitant blessings, 
in this sense — that we are invited now to realise 
by faith and hope, as far as we may, the blessed- 
ness to be experienced in the future world. 
Even now we are to act as if in the visible pre- 
sence of our Judge, and of the myriads of attend- 
ant angels ; as if the heavenly Jerusalem had 
already come down from God ; as if in the society 
of all those blessed spirits who shall by regenera- 
tion receive their perfect consummation and bliss. 
In the same sense also are we come to Jesus the 
Mediator, and to the blood of sprinkling. The 
benefits of His mediation and atonement are as 
yet received by us only in part, as far as we may 



* Phil. iii. 12. 



f So in the original. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 317 

receive them by faith and hope ; for we have 
not yet obtained our promised joint-inheritance ; 
our " crown of righteousness" is as yet laid up ; 
our "kingdom that cannot be moved" still awaits 
the promised shaking* of the earth. 

It is remarkable that St. Paul mentions both 
the church of the first-born, and the spirits of the 
just made perfect. He appears to be viewing 
the same persons under two different conditions, 
first, as members of the invisible church on earth* 
in all ages ; and secondly, as perfected in heaven. 
To the former we are already come in part ; our 
communion with the latter is reserved for another 
world. 

" To this end, 1 ' says St. Paul, " Christ both 
died, and rose, and revived, that he might be 
Lord both of the dead and living." Hence Cal- 
vin argues, that the dead must be in a state of 
consciousness; — "for he cannot be Lord except 
of those who are in being." But God is not the 
God of the dead ; and St. Paul's words point 
rather to the resurrection. Christ is Lord of 
the dead, just as He is Lord of Death. He has 
the keys of Hades and Death, but has not yet 
unlocked their dark gates, nor disenthralled the 
souls in bondage to their power. " All power is 
given unto Him in heaven and earth ;" but He 
has not yet " taken unto Himself His great power 



* Else why does St. Paul say that their names are enrolled 
in, — or, as it were, booked-fir — heaven ? 



318 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



and reigned." We must not judge our brethren, 
says the apostle ; seeing that we are to live and 
die unto the Lord alone, before whose judgement 
seat both quick and dead shall stand. # 

" A testimony against them [who hold the sleep 
of the soul] is borne," says Calvin, f "in heaven, 
before God and His angels, by the souls of the 
martyrs, who with a loud voice cry from under 
the altar, 6 How long, O Lord, dost Thou not 
avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth. 
And white robes were given unto them ; and it 
was said unto them that they should rest yet for 
a little season, until their fellow-servants also and 
their brethren that should be killed as they were, 
were fulfilled.' J What, O slumbering spirits, are 
white robes to you ? Are they cushions on which 
you may repose in sleep ? The white robes suit 
not sleep. They must needs be awake who are 
clothed thus. Doubtless the white robes signify 
the commencement of that glory which Divine 
Goodness confers on the martyrs, while they 
await the judgement-day." 

Probably Calvin is perfectly right in this. 
And these martyrs are the same with " those that 
came out of great tribulation, and had washed 



* See Romans xiv. 5 to 13. It may be observed, that Christ 
is Judge of quick and dead : and yet it cannot be said, " the 
dead are conscious now, because Christ can judge those only 
who are in being." 

f Psych opannychia. \ Rev. vi. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 319 

their robes and made them white in the blood of 
the Lamb ; * and the same as " the souls of them 
that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and 
for the word of God; * * who sat on thrones, 
and had judgement given unto them, and lived 
and reigned with Christ a thousand years. " j" And 
Calvin is probably correct also in his opinion, that 
St. John " sets forth a twofold resurrection ; one 
of the soul, before judgement, the other when the 
body is raised." For it is expressly said that 
"the souls of them which were beheaded, etc., 
lived and reigned with Christ ; and that " the 
rest of the dead" (souls surely ?) "lived not until 
the thousand years were finished." And what is 
a resurrection of the soul before judgement, or a 
soul's living with Christ while the rest of the 
dead live not, but a restoration to life and consci- 
ousness ? 

Some have maintained that " the first resurrec- 
tion" is corporeal : but even admitting this, it 
cannot be admitted, that, when souls are said 
to live, it is meant that bodies only are restored 
to life, and that the souls were alive before : and 
also that , when it is said, " the rest of the dead 
lived not," corpses only are intended. But in 
order to obtain from the above passages a proof 
of intermediate consciousness, continued from the 
time of death, we must further believe that the 
first resurrection includes all the dead, who die 
in the Lord : whereas the Scripture speaks of 



* Rev. vii. 



f Rev. xx. 



320 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



martyrs alone.* They will live, i. e. their souls 
will live, for a thousand years before the rest of 
the dead are restored to life : but there is no 
ground for supposing that the souls and bodies of 
all the redeemed will enjoy a millennial reign ; 
supervening upon an indefinite period of hopeful 
consciousness. It is appointed unto men once to 
die, and after this the judgement ; — not two pro- 
tracted states of intermediate life. The martyrs 
indeed shall be in a state to cry unto God, and 
receive white robes, for a little season before that 
judgement on their persecutors ; on which, as it 
appears, the millennial reign of Christ shall ensue. 
But we need not expand this little season even in 
their case, much less in that of others, into untold 
thousands of years. 

Strange it is, seeing that death and judgement 
are in Scripture brought so near each other, that 
there are many who have familiarized their minds 
to the belief that two states must be passed through, 
and each of great length, before the deceased 
Christian encounters the final judgement seat, to 
"receive the things done in the body, whether 
they be good or bad." Many expect to be in 
great bliss and glory, emancipated from the bon- 
dage of the flesh, and with Christ, immediately 



* It has been observed that to those that were slain for the 
witness of Jesus are added those " which had not worshipped t he 
Beast;" or as many as (otrivts) had not worshipped. But 
these also are martyrs ; for " as many as would not worship the 
image of the Beast were killed." Rev. xiii. 15. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 321 

on their departure from this world ; and hope to 
exchange this wholly spiritual state for a Millen- 
nial reign with Christ upon the present earth, 
before the second resurrection. And this their 
millennial state, in which the body is, as they 
suppose, re-united to the soul, is of course expected 
to confer on them an addition of happiness and 
glory. But let them consider well, what further 
bliss they reserve, in their imaginations, for their 
fourth state, after the judgement, when heaven 
and earth have passed away. In truth, they 
practically reserve none : but appropriate to 
themselves, in their second or third state, every 
particular form of blessing which God has pro- 
mised to confer at, and not before that time when 
the "blessed of the Father," having been finally 
judged, " inherit the kingdom prepared for them 
from the foundation of the world." Nay, in too 
many instances, they actually apply to their sup- 
posed third state all the magnificent language in 
which the closing chapters of the Apocalypse 
describe the new post-millemiml heavens and 
earth ! 

But since the minds of many are familiarized 
to these expectations, it may not be labour thrown 
away to point out to them briefly some of the 
reasons which may be assigned for expecting that 
the restoration of Israel to God's favour will be 
post-millennial ; and that the millennial reign 
itself does not take place on earth. 

It must be admitted that there are many pas- 

Y 



322 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

sages in the Jewish Scriptures, which seem to 
point to a restoration of the Jews to the earthly 
Canaan, in fulfilment of the promises originally 
made to their nation. But we are certain never- 
theless, that the patriarchs did not look for tran- 
sitory promises ; not to an inheritance on this 
earth, though of a thousand years duration. God 
was the God of Abraham and his seed, because 
they looked further, to a heavenly country, to a 
city which cannot be moved, which cannot pass 
away, as an earthly Jerusalem must needs pass, 
with the present heavens and earth. And on 
what were these expectations founded, if not on 
those very words of God, to which some give an 
earthly meaning ? It cannot be said, that these 
expectations were founded upon mere general 
promises of a resurrection and another life. The 
Canaan, the Jerusalem which they expected, were 
heavenly. They did not hope to rise from their 
graves to enjoy an earthly country, to be after- 
wards exchanged for some heavenly state. 

Further, it is abundantly plain, that the pro- 
mised restoration of Israel is frequently connected 
with and involved in predictions of the shaking 
and removal of the present heavens and earth, 
and the establishment of the new — with the gene- 
ral resurrection, — the final judgement, — the pu- 
nishment of sinners. Job says, the saints of old 
" shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep, 
till the heavens be no more." Now, if the mil- 
lennial reign of Christ be on the present earth, 
which is not to be removed until after the thousand 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



323 



years are finished, how is it possible to reconcile 
these words of Job with the belief in a general 
resurrection of saints before the millenium ? It is 
too much to say that there will be a double reno- 
vation : first a renewal of the face of the present 
earth, sometimes indicated by predictions of the 
passing away or removal of it, and afterwards an 
exchange of this earth for another. " The day 
of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in 
the which the heavens shall pass away, the earth 
be burned up ; nevertheless we look/' says St. 
Peter,* " for new heavens and a new earth :" for 
this, and nothing but this. 

Full of hope of the city which hath foundations, 
David f " would not fear though the earth were 
removed, and the mountains were carried into the 
midst of the sea." " There is a river," he con- 
tinued, " the streams whereof shall make glad the 
City of our God, * * God is in the midst of her, 
she shall not be moved." No, not though " the 
kingdoms were moved," and at the voice of the 
Lord "the earth melted!'\ So also in another 
place, " The Lord reigneth, the hills melted like 
wax at the presence of the Lord ; Zion heard. 



* 2 Pet. iii. 10. When the elements shall melt with fervent 
heat. 

\ Justus, et tenax propositi. 

\ See Psalm lxviii. which, relating primarily to the removal 
of the ark in search of a resting place, is prophetical of the re- 
moval of God's church militant on earth to its resting place 
' eternal in the heavens." 



324 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

and was glad." And it seems that the Psalm 
following contains Zions song of gladness before 
the presence of the Lord : wherein she, while the 
hills melt before Him, rejoices and cries, "He hath 
remembered his mercy and truth towards the 
h ouse of Israel ! "* 

Isaiah also shows in many places the expecta- 
tion of the believing Jews that God would restore 
them when he came to judge the world, to burn 
up the earth. " The windows from on high are 
open, the foundations of the earth do shake : the 
earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean 
dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly ; the 
transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, it 
shall fall and not rise again.^ And it shall come 
to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish 
the host of the high ones that are on high, J and 
the kings of the earth upon the earth. Then the 
moon shall be confounded and the sun ashamed, 
when the Lord God shall reign in mount Sion 
and in Jerusalem and before his ancients glo- 
riously. "§ This glorious description is introduced 
immediately after a striking picture of the misery 



* See Psalms xcvii. xcviii. and civ. 

f It shall not recover ; therefore Isaiah does not allude to 
any temporary j udgements inflicted on the land of Judea, pre- 
vious to a millennial restoration ; but to the final condemnation 
of the earth. 

X Probably the powers of that spiritual wickedness which is 
" in high places." 
§ Isaiah xxiv. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



325 



and desolation of the land of Judea, such as we 
see realized at the present day : and is evidently 
intended as a promise of the happy change which 
shall befall Israel, when, shortly before the disso- 
lution of the earth, and reign of the Lord, the 
repentant people " cry aloud from the sea, and 
sing for the majesty of Jehovah." 

The next chapter is yet more express. " In 
this mountain [Zion], will the Lord make unto 
all people a feast, — swallow up death in vic- 
tory, — wipe away tears from off all faces, and 
take away, (then and not before) the rebuke of 
his people." " In that day," — as soon as the 
coming of the Lord is visibly drawing nigh, — 
shall a song be sung in the land of Judah, con- 
taining these words, " O Lord our God, other 
gods beside thee have had dominion over us," — 
so that their penitence and emancipation seem to 
have commenced just before, — " but by Thee 
only will we" — in future — " make mention of thy 
Name. * * * Thy dead men shall live, together 
with my dead body shall they arise. # * Behold 
the Lord cometh out of His place to punish the 
inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity ; the 
earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no 
more cover her slain" It appears then that the 
slayers and their innocent victims shall together 
meet the reward of their deeds, at the general 
resurrection, when death is swallowed up in vic- 
tory, the rebuke of Gods people taken away, 
and they themselves delivered from serving them 
that are no Gods. 



326 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

At the close of another chapter*" we find lan- 
guage which, were its meaning not controlled by 
the comment of St. Paul, the believers in a mil- 
lennial reign on earth would undoubtedly appro- 
priate to themselves. " Look unto me and be ye 
saved, all the ends of the earth, I am God and 
there is none else. I have sworn by Myself, the 
word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness 
and shall not return, that unto me every knee 
shall bow, and every tongue shall swear. Surely, 
shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness 
and strength," etc. "In the Lord shall all the 
seed of Israel be justified and shall glory." Here 
is no promise of a millennium, when all men shall 
bow before Jehovah, and Israel rule the world ; 
but of the general resurrection.^ 

Again, " Hearken unto me, my people, and 
give ear to me, O my nation ; for the Lord shall 
comfort Zion, he will make her wilderness like 
Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord ; 
My righteousness is near," etc. Lift up your 
eyes unto the heavens, and look upon the earth 
beneath, for the heavens shall vanish away like 
smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a gar- 
ment, but my salvation shall be for ever." * * I 
am the Lord thy God. I have put my words in 
thy mouth, and covered thee with the shadow of 
mine hand, that I may 'plant the heavens, and 
lay the foundation of the earth, and say unto 



* Isaiah xlv. 



f See Romans xiv. 10. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 327 

Zion, Thou art my people."* And in close 
connexion with this, further on, "For a small 
moment have I forsaken thee, but with great 
mercies will I gather thee. * * For the moun- 
tains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but 
my kindness shall not depart from thee, nor the 
covenant of my peace be removed. O thou 
afflicted, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, 
and thy foundations with sapphires." j* 

These are strong testimonies to the truth, that 
the restoration of the Jews will be after the mil- 
lennium ; and if this be admitted, no ground is 
left for the expectation of an earthly millennial 
reign. St. John declares that the souls of the 
martyrs lived and reigned with Christ ; and in 
believing in their spiritual reign over the earth, 
and in the temporary suspension, for the same 
period, of the power of the Prince of Darkness, 
we believe enough : enough, without claiming 
for the saints of the millennium the surpassing 
glories of the New Jerusalem ; nor for all departed 
Christians in their ante-millennial state, that life 
of the soul, and that reign with Christ, which is 
the especial privilege of martyrs, and which will 
endure for ten centuries only. 

There yet remains one important passage, 



* Isaiah li. 

f Isaiah liv. See Rev. xxi. 19, where this city, planted after 
the millennium, is more fully described. 



328 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



which is commonly held to convey the most direct 
proof, not of consciousness merely, but of peculiar 
♦ happiness and glory, during the intermediate 
state. To the believing robber on the cross, who 
prayed, " Lord, remember me when thou comest 
in thy kingdom," our Saviour replied, IC To-day 
thou shalt be with me in Paradise." Beyond 
dispute, the reward promised was not one that 
might be conferred at the general resurrection ; 
for thus Jesus would merely be remembering the 
suppliant " when he came in his kingdom ;" though 
in what it actually consisted is less evident. But 
be it what it may, nothing can be more presump- 
tuous and unwarrantable, than to expect the same 
reward, or even any reward like it, for all be- 
lievers in Christ. As well, — nay, less presump- 
tuously — might we expect that all who " walked 
with God" should be translated with Enoch and 
Elijah, and never see death. Eor as far as we 
can judge, the faith of the penitent robber * ex- 
ceeded theirs ; as it exceeded that of the apostles, 
and probably of every follower of our Lord.f 
When the enemies of Jesus, to all appearance, 
prevailed, when he submitted to stripes, insults, 
and finally the most ignominious death, the tri- 
umph of the unbelievers was complete, and the 
last hopes of his followers seem to have faded 



* Not thief, but robber, or bandit, — of the same trade with 
Barabbas* In ill-governed countries men of this class are often 
popular, as in Italy and Spain at this day. 

\ See the " Lectures on a Future State." 



OX THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



329 



away.* One of them had betrayed him, another 
repeatedly denied him, the rest forsook him and 
fled. His enemies exulted in the proof which, to 
their minds, his degrading death afforded, that 
he could not be the anointed of God ; saying, If 
thou be the Son of God, come down from the 
cross and we will believe : that he should save 
himself was the only way they could imagine of 
his making good his pretensions. And accord- 
ingly one of his fellow sufferers reviled him in 
the same terms, " If thou be the Son of God, save 
thyself and us." Then it was that the other male- 
factor not only rebuked his companion, and bore 
testimony to the innocence of Jesus, but acknow- 
ledged him as a triumphant sovereign about to 
enter upon his kingdom. * * His faith stood a 
trial before which that of all the other disciples 
was shaken. Having* once, on good and sufficient 
grounds believed on Jesus as the Christ, he 
remained unshaken in his trust, even at the 
moment when the enemies of the crucified King 
were filled with triumph, and his disciples with 
doubt or despair. * # Whether any of us does 
actually possess faith equal with this man can be 
known only to the All-wise God. But we may 
be sure that none of us can display equal faith 
with his, because the circumstances are such as 
can never occur again. To those therefore, who 



' * Our Lord's leaving his mother to the care of his beloved 
disciple probably confirmed their apprehension, that they should 
see Jesus no more in this world. * 



330 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



do not claim for all Christians a faith equal to 
that of the penitent robber, it must be a matter 
of comparatively small moment to attempt to 
determine what is meant, by being with Christ 
in Paradise. 

In all probability however the Paradise intended 
is the same as is mentioned elsewhere in the New 
Testament. £< To him that overcometh," our 
Lord declareth by St. John, "I will give to eat 
of the tree of life, that groweth in the midst of 
the Paradise of God." This is evidently a pro- 
mise of a reward after the general resurrection,* 
when the redeemed shall be permitted to eat of 
the precious fruit mentioned in the last chapter 
of the Apocalypse. — The same place of bliss was 
beheld in vision by St. Paul, who was u caught 
up into Paradise," and there heard unutterable 
words. Into the same place the believing robber 
was probably admitted as soon as Jesus himself 
entered it. But notwithstanding the weight due 
to the expression " to-day," it may be questioned 
whether our Lord entered Paradise before his 
ascension, or at the earliest, before his resurrec- 
tion. For was he in the place to which St. Paul 
was " caught up," — in a region belonging to those 
new heavens which are eventually to " come down 



* For the other rewards for those who overcome, are not 
immediately consequent on death. The departed saints have 
not yet received " power over the nations," — to break them in 
pieces at " the end," — nor attained that consummate glory of 
" sitting with Christ on his throne." 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 331 



from God," — at the very time of his descent into 
Hades ? Was he, — was his human soul, — at once 
above earth and below it, of whom St. Paul says 
that he who ascended u first descended into the 
lower parts of the earth ?" This seems impro- 
bable ; and therefore, if a strict interpretation of 
the expression " to-day" be contended for, there 
is no alternative but to place Paradise below, in 
that Hades, into which our Lord's human soul 
most certainly descended. But this alternative 
would probably be found no less inconvenient : 
for it is hard to believe that our Lord's human 
soul was in Paradise both when he was in Hades, 
and also when he left it ; or to place it in the 
Hades which shall eventually be " cast in the lake 
of fire." Paradise is probably above, and was 
entered by our Lord at his ascension. The 
question is certainly obscure ; but whatever may 
be understood by Paradise, it can never be shown, 
that Christians in general have a better claim to 
be admitted to the privileges of the robber, than 
they have to be translated or transfigured with 
Enoch, Elijah, and Moses. 



332 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE INTERMEDIATE STATE CONCLUDED. 

THERE is another point of view in which the 
intermediate state may be regarded, which 
opens questions of vast extent, and which from 
their importance demand a serious and cautious 
investigation. If there be any consciousness im- 
mediately after death, it is reasonable to suppose 
that it owes its existence to the same causes, (if 
we may so speak in reference to the counsels of 
the Most High) the same causes which will pro- 
duce the Resurrection at the Last Day ; and the 
final state of happiness or misery : — that the inter- 
vening worlds are rather anticipatory of resurrec- 
tion, than consequent on death : that (even if the 
interval be occupied, as some imagine, with recol- 
lections of the world left behind, as well as with 
anticipations of a world to come,) the soul must 
nevertheless be in an introductory state, not a 
state conclusive or consummatory : just as the 
imprisonment of a criminal before trial, however 
notorious his offence, is enforced and sanctioned 
by the law, solely from its relation to a future 
day of trial and judgement. It is in the fact that 
a man will live, when the last trump has sounded, 
not in the fact that he has lived for threescore years 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 333 

and ten, that a reason must be sought for the 
belief in a consciousness beyond the grave. 

But here a difficulty presents itself which may 
at first sight appear insurmountable and distress- 
ing*. It has been just assumed, that the proper 
consequence and effect of death is, total insensi- 
bility ; that any mode of consciousness, any 
modification of life, which takes place after death, 
must arise from the power of Christy exerted in 
overcoming death. " As in Adam all die, even 
so in Christ shall all be made alive." It must be 
taken for granted, that the assumption of humanity 
by Christ, His Passion and death, his Resurrec- 
tion and Ascension to the right hand of the 
Father, and his promised second Advent with 
power and great glory are not merely the accre- 
dited signs and pledges of the resurrection of all 
men from their graves, and the admission of the 
faithful into immortality, but have actually wrought 
out, and are the causes of that resurrection and 
that immortality. And if the causes of the resur- 
rection of the good, and of their entrance into 
eternal happiness, then also the causes of the 
resurrection of the wicked unto damnation, and 
their banishment to the "furnace of fire, where 
shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth :" and the 
causes no less — of whatever consciousness there 
may be, between death and the resurrection. 

What then, it might be asked, was the penalty 
originally imposed upon Adam, and entailed on 
all the offspring of his fallen nature ? If it was 
nothing worse than a liability to pain and sickness 



334 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

and sorrow, to be terminated by an event which 
multitudes of the heathen look forward to as a 
blessing, — by a total cessation of existence mental 
and corporeal, a dissolution of the body, and 
dreamless sleep and torpor of the soul, what are 
we to think of the mediation of Christ ? Did the 
Son of God come down, and will He revisit the 
earth, not only to save a chosen few, (for though 
many are called, few are chosen) but to add 
infinitely to the punishment of the rest? To 
recal to existence those enemies of God, who had 
been else blotted out of creation ; — to rend the 
strong chain of slumbers which but for His Om- 
nipotent hand must have bound them fast for 
ever ; to compel them, in an agony of fear, to 
wait for the coming judgement ; and finally to 
consign the victims of his indignation, imploring 
in vain to be permitted to return to Hades, and 
even claiming nothingness as their birth-right, to 
a dungeon of sleepless despair ? Will the Sun of 
Righteousness shine, 

" To waken flesh upon the rack 
Of pain anew to writhe" 

which had else been eternally concealed beneath 
the curtain of oblivion ? 

And for the chosen heirs of salvation ; from 
what shall they be saved ? Can it be said that 
Christ will rescue them from the everlasting fire ; 
when, but for his resurrection, they had never 
risen from the dust ? 

To these questions, which in their very form 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 335 

and language seem, if not to impeach the justice, 
at least to derogate from the mercy of God, a 
more comprehensive view of the nature of the 
Christian dispensation, and the wide extent of its 
bearings, furnishes a sufficient check, if not a 
satisfactory reply. It must become evident, that 
the supposition of a fall of man, and a penalty of 
death, without an advent of Christ to accomplish 
the redemption, is altogether extravagant and 
inadmissible into our human reasonings. Unless 
we choose to suppose the ways of God to men, to 
be not the ways of perfect wisdom and justice and 
goodness, or unless we can imagine two widely 
different, nay, contrary administrations of the 
world to be both equally consistent with the per- 
fection of these attributes, we must conceive the 
creation of human and peccable creatures, with- 
out the redemption, to be a thing impossible. 
And this, not by* any means because we presume 
to judge beforehand what the Almighty can, or 
cannot accomplish, but because we are told that 
both are parts of one divine scheme ; and we 
therefore conclude that they are literally, in the 
nature of things, which is nothing else than the will 
and ordinance of God, inseparable. It is always 
dangerous, and generally unprofitable, to indulge 
in speculations founded on a different system of 
things from that which divine wisdom has estab- 
lished. We have not faculties for the task. 

We cannot positively know whether even the 
most trifling occurrences in the material, as well as 
moral world are not controlled by a strong neces- 



33G 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



sity, such that none of them could possibly have 
been otherwise than as it is, — seeing that every 
act of God is right ; every thing, even when evil 
in itself, being permitted by him, is rightly per- 
mitted. We are assured in Scripture that offences 
must come, though woe be reserved for the offender ; 
and we shall seek in vain to become wise above 
that which is written ; and devise for ourselves 
some other dispensation than that of mixed good 
and evil, which prevails in this nether world. 

It would be idle and fruitless to indulge in any 
speculations as to the consequences which would 
ensue, if the reasoning faculties of man had been 
more acute, or if any particular propensity were 
added to, or taken from, the human mind. For 
no consequences are properly assignable on such 
suppositions ; we may assume any that we please. 
We may as well alter according to our capricious 
fancies the sequence of events, as alter the rela- 
tions of events which are cotemporaneous. 

Still more unreasonable is it to speculate on 
the consequences which would ensue, if one part 
of a great moral scheme, (which, by the estab- 
lished nature and course of things, — that is, by 
the unchangeable perfection of the Divine wisdom 
and goodness and justice and power, — is neces- 
sarily connected with the other) were retained, 
and the other part rejected. And we may be 
certain that Creation and Redemption are thus 
intimately connected ; are parts of one divine 
scheme. For Christ is held out to us as the 
" Lamb slain before the foundation of the world /' 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 337 

slain to atone for the sin which man, it was fore- 
seen, would introduce on the earth was about to 
be.* It was not after nature had begun to groan 
and travail, but even before she came forth, inno- 
cent and undefiled, from her Creator's hands, that 
the fountain of living waters was opened, which 
should wash away her stains, and remove her 
griefs. If man could have continued sinless, he 
would have remained in Paradise : — but lo ! even 
before his fall were heavenly mansions made 
ready ; " prepared from the foundation of the 
world." No sooner had Adam transgressed than 
a prospect of the pre-ordained cross of Christ 
was opened to his view. He had been told, indeed, 
that he should return to the dust ; but his flesh 
was to rest in hope ; his seed would bruise the 
head of the " old Serpent," who had caused his 
miserable fall. 

To inquire then what would have happened, 
but for the Mediation of Christ, is extravagant 
and absurd. It is to suppose the Deity to stop 
short, as it were, and only half accomplish a 
scheme of inscrutable and infinite goodness and 
wisdom. Christ shall wake the dead., both evil 
and good, from the slumbers of " the first death," 
as it is called in the Apocalypse ; but not from 
slumbers which else would have been final : no 



* So in i Peter, chap. i. " A lamb without blemish and 
without spot; who verily was fore-ordained before the founda- 
tion of the world." 

Z 



338 ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

such a supposition may be entertained ; the resur- 
rection, with all its consequences, was ordained 
and prepared for, before the creation of man. 
" The questions, whether God could have saved 
the world by other means than the death of Christ, 
consistently with the general laws of his govern- 
ment ? and, Had not Christ come into the world, 
what would have been the future condition of the 
better sort of men ? have been," says Bishop But- 
ler,* "rashly determined, and, perhaps with equal 
rashness, contrary ways. Neither of them can 
properly be answered without going upon the 
infinitely absurd supposition, that we know the 
whole of the case. And perhaps the very inquiry, 
what would have followed if God had not done 
as he has f may have in it some very great impro- 
priety ; and ought not to be carried on any fur- 
ther, than is necessary to help our partial and 
inadequate conception of things." f 

Questions may perhaps be raised, — whether 
the condition of souls in Hades was not changed 
for the better by the first advent of Christ ? or 
whether the partial victory over death, obtained 
through His death and resurrection, operated 
before the event, so as to render the conquest of 
death, over the souls of those who died before our 
Lord's coming, less complete than it would other- 
wise have been ? Both inquiries are important 



* The Analogy, Part II. Chapter v. note, 
f See Appendix. 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



339 



in reference to the question of an intermediate 
consciousness. If such consciousness be, as has 
been maintained above, altogether anticipatory 
of resurrection, not necessarily or naturally con- 
sequent on death, they who died before Christ's 
coming must have been unconscious, (at least until 
His coming,) unless His resurrection operated by 
way of anticipation. And that it did so operate 
is more than can be proved from Scripture. To 
Adam was given the promise " Thy seed shall 
bruise the serpent's head." The victory was 
ordained, but not accomplished ; the Old Serpent 
Satan did not immediately feel his deadly wound. 
The liberation of the souls which were to pass 
into Hades was also ordained ; but it does not 
follow that the power of the grave was then im- 
paired, and " the gates of hell" shaken, and that 
the fetters forged by Death for souls yet unborn 
were then wrested from his hands. 

And if Christ's resurrection did not operate 
before the event, neither did it immediately after- 
wards.^ " The whole creation," says St. Paul, 
" groweth and travaileth in pain together until 
now :" that is, " up to this present time," long 
after the ascension of the Lord. It groaneth 



* Except perhaps in the case of the comparatively few 
" saints which slept," who arose and came out of their graves 
after Christ's resurrection, manifesting thus, (and not by any 
.mere change in their disembodied souls,) His power who now 
held the keys of Hades : and who, as there is reason to con- 
jecture, never returned to the tomb. 



340 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



thus, every creature groaneth, waiting* for the 
" manifestation of the sons of God," at the resur- 
rection. " As in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
shall all be made alive, Christ the first fruits, 
afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming." 
Certainly this passage is unfavourable to the 
belief, that the death originally introduced through 
Adam is in any wise removed through Christ, 
excepting at his second coming, at which the 
" dead men shall live." 

Again, it deserves to be considered, that since 
our blessed Lord himself, as has been argued 
above, " tasted death for every man, and through 
death overcame him that had the power of death," 
he must, as it appears, from the very nature of 
the case, have partaken of the full unmitigated 
penalty of death ; — tasted of death, such as, but 
for His coming, it ivould have been to the soul 
of every child of Adam. If this be so, it follows 
that death is, to the soul of every Christian, what 
it would have been, but for Christ, to the souls of 
all men ; unless we prefer to believe that the faith- 
ful followers of our Lord have, as we are nowhere 
informed, a better passage through the dark valley 
than their Lord himself ! 

But rejecting this supposition, we must needs 
conclude that death is now both such as it ever 
has been, and such as, (allowing the supposition) 
it would have been, but for the Advent of Christ : 
not being changed as yet, in any degree, either 
in its nature or power, by his first coming, either 



ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



341 



at the time of his resurrection, or before that 
event : but still reigning over every deceased 
soul, forbidding it, — since the God in whom 
we live and move, and have our being, is not the 
God of the dead, — to live, to move, or to be. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT. 

HUMAN philosophy, both natural and moral, 
has been proved by experience as unable to 
approach the truths revealed in Scripture con- 
cerning the Day of Judgement, as to decide the 
fate of a disembodied soul. It can indeed furnish 
some reasons for conjecturing that our present 
earth shall finally be broken up and ruined, if not 
actually annihilated ; and some — most feeble and 
insufficient — reasons also, for supposing that the 
whole human race shall finally be gathered, one 
by one, as they depart this life, into two perma- 
nent worlds ; but that their present world shall 
pass away before the commencement of the final 
state even of the first-born of the race ; and that 
in its fall and ruin shall be involved that of, as 
far as we know, the whole material universe, are 
truths beyond the reach of man. 

It lies indeed within the province of reason to 
determine, that the world is not the work of 



342 



THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT. 



chance, or of any blind power ; but of a Designer 
and a Deity, by whom the whole was called into 
being, wrought up, arranged, set in motion, 
organized, animated. And it is evident that the 
same Power who created can likewise, either gra- 
dually or suddenly, uncreate ; nay, that His 
might only can sustain ; that His is the breath of 
life in the nostrils of all creatures, and the strength 
of the hills is His also ; and that the universe, if 
no longer upheld by the word of his power, must 
vanish away like smoke. And we may further 
conjecture that the chief end of the creation of 
our earth was to afford a fit abode for the human 
race : that, as other races, of plants and animals, 
have been permitted to become extinct, so also 
our own race may have its term, and our man- 
sion either be pulled down when its tenants are 
gone, or be brought in ruins on their heads, 
when the Mighty One who upholds the pillars 
of it, has decreed their destruction. 

The observations of astronomers also seem to 
indicate that the hand of the Almighty is even 
now at work, creating or destroying worlds. 
Stars as splendid as the sun have opened their 
light in regions previously dark ; others have 
been blotted out from the heavenly scroll, and 
their place has known them no more : whence 
the eventual extinction of our own sun, and the 
consequent destruction of the human race, at 
some perhaps all but infinitely remote period, is 
not an improbable event. And as we cannot but 
believe that there was a time when no part of the 



THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT. 



343 



visible universe (or of that all but boundless 
system, in comparison of which the part visible 
to us is probably small) as yet was called into 
being ; so we may conclude that a time will come 
when all shall have ceased to exist. But that all 
shall be together abolished, that one period shall 
be the fulness of time for all, is contrary to every 
anticipation. " The day of the Lord," never- * 
theless, shall come as a thief in the night, suddenly 
as the deluge ; and the heavens shall be rolled 
together as a scroll, the elements shall melt with 
fervent heat, and all things being on fire shall be 
dissolved ; the earth and heavens shall flee away 
from before the face of God, and no place be 
found for them. So it is written, so it is decreed. 
Philosophy never dreamed of such a consummation ; 
nor dared foresee " the end of things created." 

Nay, it is disbelieved by many who, while they 
profess to acknowledge the authority of revelation, 
would suppose that its language is metaphorical ; 
or that the heavens intended are merely the at- 
mosphere encircling our own globe. Let such 
persons consider our Lords own words ; — " The 
sun shall be darkened, the moon shall not give 
her light, the stars of heaven shall fall, the powers 
that are in heaven shall be shaken. Then shall 
they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds."* 
At our Lord's ascension 44 a cloud received him 
out of the sight" of his disciples. Beyond dispute 
we are to take that account literally : and so also 



* Mark xiii. 24. 



344 



THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT. 



when it is said that Christ will come in the clouds 
of heaven, we are to understand the material 
clouds of the visible heavens : of the heavens to 
which the redeemed will be " caught up to meet 
the Lord in the air" at his coming. How then 
can we understand the words " sun, moon, and 
stars," otherwise than literally ? Of that type of 
the Second Advent, the destruction of Jerusalem, 
it was prophesied, "nation shall rise against na- 
tion, and kingdom against kingdom, and great 
earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines 
and pestilences, and fearful sights and great 
signs shall there be from heaven :" and profane 
history records the literal fulfilment of every part 
of the prophecy. How then can we suppose the 
language metaphorical which tells us " There 
shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in 
the stars ; and upon the earth distress of nations 
with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring ?" 
And what portion of the material created universe 
shall be saved, when the stars fall, and the pow- 
ers of heaven are shaken ? what portion does St. 
Paul except, when he speaks of the " removal of 
those things which are shaken, as of things that 
are made, that the things ivhich cannot be shaken 
may remain?"* By the powers of heaven [seem 
to be intended those invisible forces by which the 
whole material universe, the whole system of 
" things that are made," is maintained in being.f 
These being shaken and removed, the sun, moon, 



* See Heb. xii. 26. 



f See Appendix. 



THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT. 



345 



and stars, must fall in ruin, must vanish away 
like smoke. They pervade the whole visible 
universe, to the furthest bounds of the space cog- 
nisable by man ; and would scarcely be said to 
be " removed" merely because their agency was 
suspended as regards this speck of earth, or the 
sun to which it belongs. If these powers fail, all 
the things created must fail with them, and pass 
away together on the " Dreadful Day." 

Then also shall take place that common judge- 
ment of mankind, and that first entrance into 
celestial bliss or eternal punishment, which to the 
heathens was wholly unknown, and which no 
philosophy can teach. Ante-dating the events of 
the Last Day, and distributing them over a long 
period, the heathen philosopher placed the throne 
of Pluto, or of some similar power, in the shades 
below, and supposed him to hold a perennial ses- 
sions for the separate trial of each soul summoned 
before him by Death ; and to assign each to its 
appropriate place of bliss or bale. Many who in 
modern times would be wise above that which is 
written have indulged in the same natural error ; 
and not contented with the Day of Judgement, 
Heaven, and Hell, have insisted on a previous 
adjudication, and on preliminary states of happi- 
ness or misery. 

The principles upon which judgement shall be 
executed on that Day, are yet more remote from 
human conjectures than is the universality of the 
judgement. That our earth and all visible worlds 



346 



THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT. 



shall on one and the, same day be abolished 
utterly ; that nevertheless the human race, even 
all in whose nostrils has ever been the breath of 
life, shall in bodily form survive that awful period ; 
that new heavens and a new earth shall be cre- 
ated, not to be destroyed, but to endure for all 
eternity ; these are truths which, one and all, 
baffle the researches and should humiliate the 
pride of human philosophy. But it is a yet greater 
wonder, (and an apparent evil too, more extensive 
and more desperate than any which philosophy 
can detect ; and which in all our inquiries con- 
cerning the origin of evil should be carefully 
kept in sight,) that a few only of mankind shall 
rejoice in the restitution of all things ; a few 
only shall receive the gift of life eternal ; while 
the many, not being rescued by the Redeemer 
from their natural fate, shall go away into eternal 
punishment, and suffer a second death. 

Many writers on the origin and sufferance of 
evil have laboured to prove that it has been per- 
mitted only for a time, for the sake of eventual 
good. But unless we are to term that eternal 
death of a sinner, which God willeth not, no evil, 
evil will never be abolished. If however future 
punishment be esteemed no evil, then it would be 
difficult to show that those present sufferings are 
evil, which are all of them consequences of sin,— 
which presently punish the wicked, — and work 
for the good of the righteous. We should become 
lost, in seeking, as we imagine, to vindicate Him 
whose thoughts and ways are not as ours, we 



THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT. 



347 



should in fact vindicate only our own inven- 
tions. 

On this subject of future punishment, both as 
regards its duration, and the number of those to 
whom it will be awarded, God's revelation far 
surpasses our conjectures. For His dealings with 
man partake of His own infinity. No moral 
reasonings, no alarms of a guilty conscience, 
could enable a heart unvisited by the grace of 
God to draw so broad a line of distinction, to 
divide the human race into classes so unequal in 
amount, and whose destinies should differ infi- 
nitely. The actual extent of human depravity 
and guilt, and consequently the severity of pun- 
ishment, would not have been known, but for 
revelation. That all had so far erred, and alto- 
gether become abominable, that a superhuman 
sacrifice was necessary to atone for their guilt, 
and a supernatural impulse upon their hearts to 
enable them to please God, are truths beyond 
reason, yet on which turns the whole history of 
man, both present and future : and by which alone 
can be explained the wide distinction which shall 
be made hereafter. With God there shall be no 
neutrality, for man no middle state, less blissful 
than heaven, more tolerable than hell ; for none 
shall be accepted but through the Redeemer : for 
the rest remains only a " fearful looking for of 
judgement and fiery indignation." 



348 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE FUTURE STATE OF PUNISHMENT. 



ALTHOUGH the Scriptures abound in allu- 
sions to the future punishment of the wicked, 
little or nothing* is distinctly revealed concerning 
it. While the Christian is allured by a view of 
the splendours of the heavenly Jerusalem, the 
glories of the Divine throne, the delights of the 
Paradise of God ; there is no opposed sketch of 
a City of Destruction, no locality for the man- 
sions of the wicked, no defined image amidst the 
" blackness of darkness" which shall be their 
portion for ever. The very mode of their exis- 
tence is as yet a mystery. Writers philosophical 
and pious, may teach us that all men are alike 
immortal; but the Bible declares that the fate 
of the majority, — the fate of all who are not res- 
cued by Christ — is death. The words life, 
eternal life, immortality, etc. are always applied 
to the condition of those, and those only, who at 
the Last Day shall enter into the joy of their 
Lord. And inasmuch as death signifies either 
the ceasing to be, or at least the ceasing to live, 
we should be led to conclude that sinners will 
either be punished with annihilation, or will 
exist in a state inconceivable to us, which is the 
direct opposite of life. It surely was with some 
good reason that the Holy Spirit has not permitted 



THE FUTURE STATE OF PUNISHMENT. 349 

his messengers to call this state " life ;" but has 
invariably employed the opposite term ; and 
it cannot be safe to overlook this distinction. 
It naturally tends, and has led, to extensive 
mischief. It caused even a Christian philosopher 
to say boastfully, " There is within us an immortal 
spirit :" whereas God alone hath immortality, 
and giveth it to whom He will. And how rashly 
he builds on this foundation of error ! " Though 
the body, he says, moulders into dust, that spirit 
which was of purer origin returns to its purer 
source. What Lucretius says of it is true, in a 
sense far nobler than he intended : 

Cedit item retro, de terra quod fuit ante 

In terrain ; sed quod missum est ex setheris oris, 

Id rursus, coeli fulgentia templa receptant. 

' What was from earth returns to earth ; what was 
sent from heaven, is taken to heaven again.'" 

" Of purer origin?" Is such philosophy the 
handmaid of divine truth ? Does not every Chris- 
tian know that the soul of man is naturally cor- 
rupt and impure, and utterly unfit for communion 
with the Deity ? The words of the poet are indeed 
true, but of the Christian only, in a sense far 
nobler than he intended. What was " from the 
earth and earthy," namely the whole of the " first 
man," the child of Adam, shall return to the earth 
out of which Adam was taken, and shall inherit 
corruption ; what was sent from heaven, namely 
the whole nature of the regenerate and new man, 
quickened by the Spirit, the child of God, shall 



350 THE FUTURE STATE OF PUNISHMENT. 

be caught up from the earth, and shall inherit 
immortality. But Dr. Brown unhappily includes 
in his predicted immortality and return to heaven, 
all mankind alike ; even those who shall never 
" see God," but shall be punished with " ever- 
lasting destruction from His presence." 

This is the deplorable consequence of over- 
looking the Scriptural distinction : on the other 
hand, these contrasted terms life and death, 
while they forbid us to believe that the mode of 
existence of the righteous and the wicked will be 
the same, must not hastily be understood to imply 
that the latter shall altogether cease to be. In 
all ages and countries, it has been observed, 
" life," and the words answering to it in other 
languages, have always been applied, in ordinary 
discourse, to a wretched life, no less than to a 
happy one. " Life" therefore, in the received 
sense of the word, would apply equally to the 
condition of the blest and of the condemned, sup- 
posing these last to be destined to continue for 
ever in a state of misery. And yet to their con- 
dition the words " life" and " immortality" never 
are applied in Scripture. If therefore we suppose 
the hearers of Jesus and his apostles to have un- 
derstood, as nearly as possible in the ordinary 
sense, the words employed, they must naturally 
have conceived them to mean (unless they were 
taught anything to the contrary), that the con- 
demned were really and literally to be destroyed, 
and cease to exist, not that they were to exist for 
ever in a state of wretchedness. For they are 



THE FUTURE STATE OF PUNISHMENT. 351 

never spoken of as being kept alive, but as for- 
feiting life ; as for instance, " Ye will not come 
to me that ye may have life ;" " He that hath the 
Son, hath life ; and he that hath not the Son of 
God hath not life." * These considerations would 
have great weight, did it not appear, from our 
Lord's own words, and from the language of 
Scripture in many places, that the life which the 
Son of God gives is not a mere continuation of 
natural life, but is, in part at least, a distinct and 
more excellent gift; — a spiritual life, not a natural 
life; — dependent not on the possession of a "liv- 
ing soul," but of a " quickening spirit." The 
word life then ought not to be understood in its 
received sense ; which is applicable only to this 
present world. 

We have now seen that the contrasted terms 
life and death, while they forbid us to expect a 
common mode of existence for all, prove neither 
that the wicked will cease to be, nor the contrary. 
Their " death" may either be, the loss of spiritual 
life, or the loss of being. They may continue to 
exist, though they are not said to live. Yet there 
is a great mystery in this. They will not, it 
appears, have their present natural life restored 
to them, after the resurrection of the body: for 
this would seem to be incompatible with the " de- 
struction both of body and soul in Gehenna;" 
and with the assurance that " he that loveth his 
life (i.e. his present and earthly life) shall lose it; 



* Lectures on a Future State. By the Archbp. of Dublin. 



352 THE FUTURE STATE OF PUNISHMENT. 

while he that hateth his life (or soul) in this world, 
shall keep it unto life eternal.* 

Every one certainly would wish to believe, 
were it possible, that the future state of the un- 
righteous, their " second death," was an utter 
destruction, a total cessation of being. The mind 
naturally shrinks back appalled from the bare 
conception of hopeless eternal misery. And it 
has been observed, that many of the images em- 
ployed in Scripture to pourtray the future punish- 
ment are such as would lead us to expect an 
annihilation. Thus the wicked are called " wan- 
dering stars, for whom is reserved the blackness 
of darkness for ever;" — who shine, as it were, 
with baleful light for a time, to be extinguished 
for eternity. The image most commonly used 
is that of fire. Now fire both causes acute pain, 
and destroys or consumes that which is exposed 
to it. In which sense then is it used in Scripture ? 
Is " everlasting fire" a flame that torments for 
ever, — or a flame that utterly destroys? There 
are certainly some reasons for preferring the 
latter sense. When, at the end of the world, 
God shall gather his wheat into his garner,— to 
be preserved, " He shall burn up the chaff with 



* He who, through the grace and Spirit of God, is ready to 
deliver up his soul for Christ's sake, shall through the same in- 
dwelling and quickening spirit, be raised, soul and body, unto 
immortal life. Soul and body are mortal in themselves, but both 
through Christ's energy shall be raised incorruptible, changed, 
subdued unto His Spirit, which shall be their life, and the source 
of every impulse that sways them. 



THE FUTURE STATE OF PUNISHMENT. 353 

unquenchable fire ;" with a flame which cannot 
be extinguished, till the chaff has been utterly 
consumed. Such shall be the case also of the 
" tares," and of the " unprofitable branches." 
In like manner, as it would seem, God is called 
" a consuming fire." The Gehenna then, " where 
the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," 
may mean, it would seem, a place of destruction, 
into which whatever is thrown shall be utterly 
devoured. Again, the cities of Sodom and Go- 
morrah are said to be " suffering the vengeance 
of eternal fire :" where is certainly intended that 
fire which the Lord rained upon them of old, and 
which destroyed them utterly. Not the future 
" everlasting fire," for these cities, and their past 
fate, are " set forth for an ensample ;" as a warning 
to the ungodly of what they are to expect here- 
after. The expressions " eternal death," and 
even " everlasting punishment" might be inter- 
preted, did the language of Scripture in other 
places allow it, in a similar manner. " They may 
mean merely that there shall be no deliverance, 
no revival, no restoration of the condemned."* 
It is hard to imagine any stronger words to 
express annihilation, than " whose end is destruc- 
tion," " destroy both body and soul in hell," "ever- 
lasting destruction from the presence of God." 

Again, when it is said that some shall be beaten 
with few stripes, and some with many, we are 
led to expect future punishments differing not in 



* The Archbp. of Dublin on a Future State. 
A A 



354 THE FUTURE STATE OF PUNISHMENT. 

degree, but in extent. . But were they all alike 
infinite in duration, the stripes could not, it would 
seem, be described as " many," and " few." 

It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Go- 
morrah, than for some other cities, in the day of 
judgment. Here also we can, if we please, look 
for punishment of limited duration, beginning 
and ending on that fearful day. 

Again, it has been argued above, that the 
" death which passed upon all men, for that all 
have sinned," whose dominion endures, and whose 
sting remains, till mortals, at the Last Day, put 
on immortality, is an universal punishment, only 
on the supposition of its being a state of uncon- 
sciousness ; — and that therefore it is a state of 
unconsciousness. Whence we should expect the 
" second death" to be also a state of unconscious- 
ness. Were it a state of perpetual pain, wherein, 
it may be asked, would be its likeness to the first ; 
if the first be a blessing to all good men ; and be, 
in itself, neither good nor evil? There is, how- 
ever, some likeness between a first death, — a state 
of unconsciousness, and a second death, — a state 
of perpetual torment. In both there is a penalty, 
a separation from God, a cutting off from the 
source of life. The likeness, however, is not so 
great, on this supposition, as if both deaths be 
supposed to be states of unconsciousness. 

In other words, the first and second deaths 
most nearly resemble each other, if both be states 
of unconsciousness. There is a considerable 
resemblance however between them (which we 



THE FUTURE STATE OF PUNISHMENT. 355 

should tremble to contemplate), if the former be 
a state of unconsciousness, and the latter one of 
perpetual pain ; there is little or none, if the 
former be a state of consciousness, and of delight 
to some, of misery to others ; and the latter be a 
state of consciousness, and of unmixed misery.* 

The chief arguments against the supposition of 
eternal suffering, have now been briefly set forth. 
But let us beware of hastily adopting the conclu- 
sion to which they would lead. There are pas- 
sages of Scripture which cannot well be explained 
away ; containing awful denunciations of eternal 
woe, from which human ingenuity can find no 
shelter. The mind naturally longs for unlimited 
life ; while it prefers the thought of annihilation 
to that of eternal torment. But God's word 
frustrates man's expectations ; it gives no hope 
of life, except through Christ the Saviour ; — and 
it may be found also, to give no hope of reprieve 
from suffering to such as reject his name. We 
may recoil from a sentence so tremendous ; but 
we should remember that we can no more fathom 
God's infinite holiness and wrath, than his infinite 
mercy and love. If we ask, " Can the sins of a 
few short years deserve eternal suffering as their 
punishment?" it may be replied — " Would you 
venture to call it unjust, if the atrocious crimes 



• * There is a fourth supposition, but it does not deserve to be 
considered : viz. that the first death is a state of consciousness, 
the latter the reverse. 



356 THE FUTURE STATE OF PUNISHMENT. 

against God of ten millions of years were punished 
with permanent misery as a penalty ? — Yet there 
is no essential difference." If again it be said, 
" Mercy may be infinite ; but justice must be 
limited in its punishments ; — God may confer 
undeserved blessings of infinite amount and ex- 
tent, but not undeserved punishments ;" it may 
be asked — " Where then will you place your 
limit ? If the sufferings of sinners were an expi- 
ation for their sins, there might be a limit : * 
but Christ is the only expiation, and he has been 
rejected and trampled on. " Thou shalt by no 
means come out, till thou hast paid the uttermost 
farthing." And thou canst not redeem thy soul 
with itself ; thou, a sinner, canst not " make 
thine own soul an offering for thy sin." 

Let us now turn to the book of Revelations, 
and consider God, as He is there represented, in 
the character of an Avenger of Sin. " The 
devil that deceived them, (i. e. the nations of the 
world, after the expiration of the thousand years), 
was cast into the lake of fire, where the beast and 
the false prophet were before ; and they shall 

BE TORMENTED DAY AND NIGHT FOR EVER AND 

ever." f Here the word is the same, it may be 



* Thus the Romanists, who believe in expiatory sufferings 
for certain offences, place a limit to the pains of Purgatory. 

f Supply " were before" rather than " are" as in our version. 
JSacravicrdricrovTat, {they shall be tormented), qjuepas icai vvktos 

tU TOVt; dlMVCtq T(Z)V duovcov. 



THE FUTURE STATE OF PUNISHMENT. 357 

observed, in the original as where it is written, 
" his lord was wrath, and delivered him to the 
tormentors, till he should pay all that was due to 
him." The same also as when the devils, struck 
with terror, said to Jesus, " Art thou come hither 
to torment us before the time?" 

The fate then of the Arch-enemy of God an^ 
man will plainly be everlasting pain. Will ours 
be the same? The passage does not indeed 
actually involve man ; but it nevertheless de- 
prives him of one resting place ; it proves that 
to inflict everlasting pain, as the punishment of 
sin, is not inconsistent with the attributes of God. 
And all sinners will be cast, along with Satan, 
into " the lake which burneth with fire and 
brimstone, which is the second death." But by 
this passage, it must be admitted, mans condem- 
nation is not sealed. Tor Death and Hades, we 
read, shall be cast into the same burning lake : 
whereby it seems plainly to be meant, that an 
utter end shall be made of them. The great 
enemy Death shall be no more ; the gates of 
Hades shall come down, and the Power of De- 
struction be destroyed. What then will be the 
fate of the condemned ? Will they be destroyed, 
with Hades and Death, or tormented, with Satan 
and his angels ? Let us consult the prophecies 
again. " Let him that hath understanding count 
the number of the beast ; for it is the number of 
a man." And this man, we know, shall be tor- 
mented day and night, along with Satan, for 
ever and ever. Again, let us hear our Lord 



358 THE FUTURE STATE OF PUNISHMENT. 

saying " Depart, ye cursed, into the everlasting- 
fire prepared (not for Hades, but) for the devil 
and his angels." 

Further ; wherefore should we believe that 
they who are of their father the devil, who serve 
him, and do his works, will receive a different 
kind of wages from their master ? That his pun- 
ishments will be endless, theirs only for a time ? 
If Satan is to suffer eternal pains, why not man ? 
The transgressions of both were but for a time. 
Satan's rebellion has been permitted to continue 
for untold thousands of years, man's but for three- 
score and ten ; but there is no essential difference 
here. We have some reason to believe, since it 
is said that Satan " abode not in the truth," that 
he was originally, like man, created upright ; 
and this would bring nearer the resemblance be- 
tween them ; but whether originally pure or not, 
his existence had a beginning, he has transgressed 
only for a time. Had he his will, he would trans- 
gress and rebel to all eternity ; and who will say 
that the children of the Wicked One, if they had 
their will, would not follow his example ? Where 
then is the injustice of their being punished for 
all eternity, according to their intentions : pun- 
ished for the rebellion in which they would persist 
for ever, did not the Almighty Avenger arrest 
their course, afford them time no longer, but 
finishing on the Day decreed, the mystery of his 
toleration of sin, at length take unto Himself His 
great power and reign. But whether we can 
comprehend, or not, the justice of God's future 



THE FUTURE STATE OF PUNISHMENT. 359 

; dealings with wicked men, no sinner can show 
cause why the like judgement as shall befall 
Satan should not be executed upon himself. In 
declaring that Satan shall be tormented day and 
night for ever and ever, the Almighty God has 
revealed to us that such punishment is wise and 
just ; and who is he that shall reply against God, 
if they who do the works of Satan participate in 
Satan's reward ? * What if they who fall into the 
hands of the living God should be as the bush in 
which He revealed Himself to Moses, — the bush 
which burned with fire, and yet was not con- 
sumed ? 

That this fearful punishment, whatever its na- 
ture, awaits the larger portion of mankind, (since 
of those who are called, few are chosen, and we 
dare not believe that of those not called, a larger 
proportion can be saved,) this awful truth must 
surely place in doubt the soundness of those ar- 
guments by which moralists usually seek to prove 
the natural immortality of man. All human ex- 
cellence, if merely of the earth, shall perish with 
the earth. Though it enable man to measure the 
sun, and trace the winds, and subdue all elements 
and all animals to his will, it gives him no power 
to lay hold on eternal life. Moral reasonings 
may lead us to hope that good will be produced 



* If the imagery of the parable of Dives and Lazarus be, as 
has been argued above, in part that of the Day of Judgement, 
we may venture, without treating the parable as a revelation, to 
gather from it thus much, — That the sufferings of the wicked 
are torments of indefinite duration. 



360 THE FUTURE STATE OF PUNISHMENT. 



out of the evil : but the revelation which more 
than confirms this hope as respects some men, 
yet declares that the fate of the rest is not im- 
mortality, but everlasting death. 

Here we may leave this subject. We know 
not what that state will be, which is punishment 
but not life; but the Christian is rather con- 
cerned with the state of immortality ; and should 
aspire to be governed by his hopes of heaven, and 
that perfect love which banisheth all fear. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 

IN theological compositions, as well as in ordi- 
nary discourse, the kingdom which the heirs 
of salvation shall enter at the Last Day, to dwell 
and reign therein through all eternity, is said to 
be " in heaven ;" which is commonly understood 
to signify some place above this earth, and the 
peculiar abode of the Most High. Scripture 
appears to confirm this notion. For Christians 
are taught to pray to their father who is in hea- 
ven, and to believe that after death they shall be 
with him : and our Lord speaks of his coming- 
down from heaven, and " ascending up where he 
was before," and "going to the Father." And 
St. Paul informs us that after the resurrection of 



THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 3G1 

the body, the true followers of Christ, the adopted 
sons of God, shall be " caught up from the earth, 
and meet the Lord in the air." Hence chiefly 
it has happened that a large proportion of Chris- 
tians confound together in their thoughts " hea- 
ven," when employed to signify the place of hap- 
piness and the abode of the holy angels, with 
" heaven" in the other sense, — the visible heavens, 
otherwise called the sky ; — all, in short, that is 
removed from this earth and appears above it, 
such as the clouds, the sun moon and stars, and 
the like : so that when they think or speak of 
going to "heaven," as to a place of happiness, 
they in some degree connect this in their minds 
with the idea of some nearer approach to those 
heavenly bodies, as they are called, which appear 
over our heads. 

This notion has been frequently, but unphilo- 
sophically, blended with, and confirmed by, the 
common belief that the soul, no longer confined 
to earth by its union with the body, is still local, 
and moves upwards to heaven. Unphilosophically 
for many reasons. The "heaven" which will be 
the Christian's reward at the Last Day should 
not be confounded with, nor imagined to be the 
same place with, the region of disembodied souls, 
even had these souls locality. But locality they 
have not, nor can they move in any direction, 
when parted from matter. The notion is more- 
over unscriptural, as has been already urged. It 
was not from the cross, but from Mount Olivet, 
that our Lord " ascended to his Father." The 



362 



THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 



belief therefore, that a Christian's heaven is locally 
above, in the sky, must stand or fall by Scripture 
alone : it has nothing to do with any sort of phi- 
losophical conjectures about the place or state of 
a disembodied soul, which, whatever its condition, 
certainly is not in " heaven." 

A little consideration of Scripture will make 
it evident, that the material heavens which en- 
compass our earth, and extend immeasurably 
beyond it, although they certainly are sometimes 
represented as the peculiar seat of the Divine 
power, are not the highest heavens, not the 
" true heavens;' but are only figures or symbols 
of them. The air, winds, clouds, lightning, and 
fire, and thunder, burning and shining lights, are 
all symbols and appointed signs of the Presence 
of God ; of Him who caused the bush to burn 
with fire before Moses, who led His people by a 
cloud in the day time, and a fiery pillar by night, 
— who descended in fire on Mount Sinai, and the 
smoke thereof ascended as a furnace, — who 
covered the tent of the congregation with a cloud, 
and filled the tabernacle with a glory, — at whose 
voice speaking from heaven the people that stood 
by and heard it said that it thundered, — who came 
down from heaven with a sound as of a mighty 
rushing wind, and in cloven tongues as of fire, — 
who was received up into a cloud, and shall again 
return with clouds, — who maketh the clouds his 
chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind ; 
— they are signs and symbols of the true heavens 



THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 363 

and of Him who dwells therein, but are not those 
heavens themselves. 

A symbol is something more than a sign ; for 
a sign may be altogether arbitrary ; a symbol 
must have a real analogy with the thing sym- 
bolized. The Arabic numeral 5 is the sign of a 
number ; a hand with the fingers extended is a 
symbol of that number. The sacrifices of animals 
in the Jewish ritual, were symbolic of the sacrifice 
of Christ ; the cross is merely a sign of his Passion. 
The material heavens appear evidently to partake 
of a symbolic character. The hand of God can 
indeed be discerned every where ; on the earth 
beneath, in the waters under the earth, as well as 
in the heavens above ; but on earth he works by 
a variety of means, often of a material and palpa- 
ble kind, in the observation of which our faculties 
may be absorbed and buried, till men forget the 
Great Author, and First Cause : but the powers 
of the air, though undoubtedly subject to the 
control of general laws, seem to be governed 
more directly by the will of the Invisible One. 
By celestial influences ; — -by the alternations of 
cold and heat, light and darkness, by pestilences 
and blights, floods and hurricanes, God awakens 
men to His existence and power ; and by the 
ordinary operation of some of the powers which 
produce these phenomena, — such as heat, electri- 
city, gravitation, — He doth in an especial manner, 
uphold and govern the material world, and reveal 
His presence and attributes to those who contem- 



364 THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH, 

plate them seriously. These " powers of heaven" 
therefore, so extensive in their operation, so in- 
scrutable in their influences, and which frequently 
produce appearances so magnificent, lovely, or 
terrible, may rationally be regarded as fit symbols 
of His Spirit and presence who employs them. 

Scripture discloses a further relationship. The 
true heavens are the abode of numberless intelli- 
gences and powers, myriads of angelic creatures, 
who behold their Father's face, and minister to 
His will, by whose agency moreover he himself 
acts and " does all his pleasure" in the lower and 
material heavens. David adored the Almighty 
" who maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh 
on the wings of the wind, who maketh the winds 
his messengers, and the flaming bolts his min- 
isters."* For such undoubtedly would be the 
natural rendering of the latter verse, taken in 
connection with the former. But St. Paul under- 
stands the passage in a far higher sense, and 
quotes it, — " who maketh his angels winds, and 
his ministers a flaming bolt ;"f who commands 
the intelligent agents of His will to enter the 
blast and lightning flash, to identify themselves, 
as it were, with them ; and thus clothed with 
might, yet in perfect subservience to Him, 

" To execute their airy purposes, 
And works of love or enmity fulfil." 

The Jewish tabernacle and temple, with all their 



* Ps. civ. 



f Heb. i. 



THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 365 

principal parts, were formed so as to be symbolic 
of things in the true and spiritual heavens. " Let 
them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell 
among them. According to all that I shall show 
thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the 
pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so 
shall ye make it." And after a minute descrip- 
tion of some of the chief contents of the tabernacle 
it is added, " Look that thou make them after 
their pattern, which was showed thee on the 
Mount ;" i. e. on Mount Sinai, where Moses be- 
held " the true tabernacle, which the Lord 
pitched, and not man ;" into which Christ enter- 
ing, entered into heaven itself and the immediate 
presence of God. Now the graven images* of 
the Cherubim, between which the Divine glory 
dwelt in an especial manner in the tabernacle and 
temple, must evidently represent some high order 
of spiritual creatures, whose place in the " heaven 
of heavens" is probably not less honourable than 
that of their images on earth. But they are in 
Scripture identified, as it were, with mere mate- 



* " Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor 
the likeness of anything in the heaven above." To this law the 
Cherubim were an exception sanctioned by the lawgiver Him- 
self : and it does not appear that the Jews, with all their idola- 
tries, ever worshipped these images. But it is probable that the 
Gentiles paid divine honours to the Cherubim, and sculptured 
them in forms not unlike those of the Jewish temple. See the 
Introduction to Kirby's Bridgewater Treatise, where the sym- 
bolic nature of the heavens is beautifully treated, and which has 
suggested many remarks in this chapter. 



366 THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 

rial clouds ; and thus we are again led to con- 
clude that the material heavens, no less than the 
temple and tabernacle, are figures of the true and 
spiritual heavens. The Lord, it is written,* u rode 
upon a Cherub and did fly, and came flying upon 
the wings of the wind," — as the clouds are beau- 
tifully and poetically termed. Since the word 
Cherubim has been conjectured to signify powers 
or forces, and since the Cherubic images typified 
creatures in the spiritual heavens, of which again 
the material heavens are symbolic, and since the 
clouds are signs of the presence of the cherubim 
in these material heavens, we may perhaps justly 
consider these mysterious beings to be high spiri- 
tual intelligences, to whom the Almighty has 
delegated the task of upholding and controlling 
the material powers or forces that prevail in the 
inferior heavens, and of whose presence the clouds 
are an appointed sign. 

Though clouds are nothing more than aggre- 
gations of vapours raised by the sun, and the mo- 
tions of the wind and the electric flash are regu- 
lated by certain strict laws of equilibrium, yet 
there is nothing to offend reason in this occupa- 
tion of the material heavens by spiritual intelli- 
gences. For our knowledge of the essential con- 
ditions of corporeity, of the mode of connexion 
between mind and matter, is little better than 
complete ignorance : and it cannot with any show 
of reason be pretended that an aggregation of 



* Ps. xviii. 



THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 



3G7 



aqueous vapours, or a blast of air, is less fitted to 
become the abode and instrument of intelligence 
and will, than are the structures, scarcely more 
permanent in their component particles, of bones 
and flesh and blood. 

And no theory of nature can be more beautiful, 
or more attractive to the imagination than this, 
which peoples the (so called) inanimate spaces of 
creation with intelligences more exalted than man ; 
and sees in the daily and familiar phenomena of 
the universe, not only the power of the Supreme 
Ruler, but the agency of innumerable angelic 
creatures, who take delight in his service, and 
glorify him by their obedience. Regarded simply 
as material things, " the heavens declare the 
glory of God, and the firmament showeth his 
handy work but how much more gloriously 
sounds the hymn of praise, when we conceive 
it uttered by the angels, who rule in the expanse 
of heaven.* How lofty an import may then be 



* Man has been made a little lower than the angels, yet is 
" crowned with glory and honour." (Psalm viii.) But in what 
consists this glory ? " Thou madest him to have dominion over 
the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all things under his feet." 
And the superior glory conferred on the angels may consist in 
a more extensive dominion over the world : and in a power of 
controlling human wills also, analogous to man's power over 
the inferior animals. 

St. Paul however applies the words to the Son of Man, who, 
having humbled himself, has been crowned with all authority 
and power. The passage is probably fully true in both senses : 
and may apply, in the spiritual sense, to all who shall hereafter 
reign with Christ. 



368 THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 

attached to the words, of the ancient Canticle, 
that calls not only upon the " angels of the Lord" 
and on the children of men, but also on " all the 
Powers of the Lord," on the Winds of God, on 
the Lightnings and Clouds, bidding them bless 
the Lord, praise him and magnify him for ever ! 
How sublime appears the thanksgiving heard by 
St. John in the Apocalypse, when, in addition to 
countless thousands of angels, " every creature 
in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, 
and such as were in the sea," were heard to ascribe 
blessing and glory and honour and power to 
God! 

But how glorious soever these material heavens 
may appear in this point of view, it must not be 
forgotten that there are other heavens beyond 
and above them, and that the chorus of adoration 
from the earth is but a faint echo of the celestial 
song. God is indeed every where present through- 
out the material creation, in the depths as well as 
the heights ; and the earth is as properly His 
footstool as the heavens are his throne : but the 
material creation is finite, and the " heaven of 
heavens," by which here seems to be meant the 
highest of the material heavens, can no more con- 
tain him than could the temple of Solomon, 
though it has pleased Him to indicate his presence 
both in the sky, and in the temple by special 
manifestations. 

This Deity, who is every where present, so that 
in the infinite regions of space, there can be no 



THE NEW HEAVEN'S AND EARTH. 



369 



place where He is not, does also in another and 
equally plain sense, exist nowhere. As our minds, 
which to a certain extent control our bodies, and 
are conscious of the changes that happen in them, 
are said to occupy those bodies, and yet thought, 
being immaterial, cannot have a local existence, 
so the Great Spirit, who in a much more perfect 
manner occupies and governs the material uni- 
verse, exists also, as it were, within Himself, 
independently of place. And though we may 
reasonably believe that God does in some peculiar 
manner occupy the material heavens, and may 
imagine them to be, at present, the proper habita- 
tion of myriads of angelic creatures,* his minis- 
ters and agents, yet these heavens cannot possibly 
be the place of future human happiness ; for with 
the earth shall they also " pass away, and no 
place be found for them." 

Where then shall be the place of the future 
kingdom, — of the prepared mansions? Place, as 
it seems, they must have ; since the spirits of the 



* It is probable that these heavens are occupied also by evil 
spirits. St. Paul urges his converts (Ephes. chap. vi. 12.) to 
put on the whole armour of God, that they may be able to stand 
against the wiles of the devil. " For we wrestle not against 
flesh and blood; but against principalities, against powers, 
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual 
wickedness in high places" And it is likely that the minister- 
ing spirits " sent forth to minister unto them which should be 
heirs of salvation," would not leave the enemies of God and 
man in undisturbed possession of any of those " high places," 
from whence an influence, whether malignant or benign, can be 
exercised over the hearts of the elect. 

B B 



370 THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 

blessed will not be divested of corporeity, and 
the world they inhabit must therefore, like them- 
selves, be local, — " meted out," as the present 
heavens are, " by compass and by bounds." Let 
St. Peter give the answer. " We look for new 
heavens and a new earth, wherein (that is, accord- 
ing to the original, in both of which) dwelleth 
righteousness. And it seems evident, that the 
proper abode of man will be, not in the new hea- 
vens, but ON THE NEW EARTH. 

For St. John writes, in a place before quoted, 
" And I saw a new heaven and a new earth : for 
the first heaven and the first earth were passed 
away ; and there was no more sea. And I John 
saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down 
from God, out of heaven, prepared as a bride 
adorned for her husband ! and I heard a great 
voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle 
of God is with men, and he will dwell with them." 
And it is in this holy city, which shall come 
down from heaven to the new earth, with all its 
mansions prepared from the beginning, that the 
spirits of the just shall dwell. They shall find 
its gates open, its houses ready for their recep- 
tion, and the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb 
as a temple in the midst. 

The language in which this new Jerusalem is 
described is necessarily metaphorical, since it is 
only in those particulars in which the celestial 
city bears some resemblance to things on this, 
the first earth, that it can become an object of 



THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 371 

our conceptions. The Scriptures have not been 
written for the gratification of curiosity, but for 
instruction in matters of faith which may become 
motives of practical exertion in this life ; and very 
little has been said which can afford us any guid- 
ance in forming a notion how far this new earth 
will resemble the present. But to the little that 
has been said, it is worth while to give our atten- 
tive consideration. 

It seems to be at least evident, that the future 
earth will bear the same sort of relation, in its 
structure and composition, to the glorified bodies 
of its inhabitants, that the present earth bears to 
the grosser frames of flesh and blood. " There 
is a natural body, says St. Paul,* and there is a 
spiritual body. Howbeit that is not first which 
is spiritual, but that which is natural, and after- 
ward that which is spiritual." " The body is 
sown in dishonour, and raised in glory ; it is 
sown in weakness, and raised in power." — " The 
first man is of the earth, earthy, the second man 
is the Lord from heaven." Andf " we look for 
the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven ; 
who shall change our vile body, that it may be 
fashioned like unto his glorious body." It is evi- 
dently impossible for us, with our present facul- 
ties, to form any adequate notion of what is in- 
tended by the expression, a spiritual body. But 
must we not imagine a spiritual existence, in 
some incomprehensible manner restricted to place, 



* 1 Cor. xv. 



f Phil. iii. 



372 THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 

and confined within certain dimensions, though 
not encumbered with any earthly and material 
particles ? It is not unlikely, indeed highly pro- 
bable, that a glorified body may be capable of 
far greater rapidity of motion than our present 
powers admit of, or our present limited sphere 
of action requires, and the dimensions and form 
of the celestial bodies may be capable of great and 
rapid changes, from dilated to condensed, from 
bright to obscure, so as -to be capable of executing 
with the speed of thought, the mandates of the 
Father of Spirits. To fill all space at one time 
must be the prerogative of the Deity alone : and 
perhaps to exist independently of place is likewise 
his only : all finite creatures being limited in 
their powers, not merely by an essential inferiority 
in the purely spiritual part of their nature, but 
by being made subject to certain limitation as to 
time and space, nearly resembling those which 
matter now imposes. By the new earth then, 
and the heavenly Jerusalem, the future place of 
abode of the followers of Christ, of all who shall 
have attained unto " immortality," we must not 
understand a merely spiritual world, or state ; 
but, literally, a place of happiness, and (perhaps 
it may not be incorrect to say), a substantial 
seat of bliss. 

It does not seem at all necessary to infer, that 
matter, in any forms, or modifications, or combi- 
nations, or however exquisitely refined and sub- 
limed, and purged clear of all grosser particles 



THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 373 

and every tendency to corruption, and reduced 
to a " quintessence pure" impalpable as light 
itself, shall enter into the constitution of the glo- 
rified bodies, or of the earth which they shall 
inhabit. It is true that we derive all our notions 
of space and extension, at present, from material 
things, and it seems that we cannot form any 
perfectly abstract notion of these, into which no 
material image, or idea derived from sensation, 
shall enter ; yet it would be unsafe to assume, 
while a passage of Scripture asserts the existence 
of spiritual corporeity, that no similar limitations 
are possible, without the aid of some modification 
of matter. 

The ingenious Author of the Physical Theory 
has however, in a passage which has been pre- 
viously quoted, expressed a different opinion. 
"The blending of mind and matter," he says 
(Chap, ii.), " in the bodily structure of the sen- 
tient and rational orders, we may be assured, is a 
method of procedure, which if it be not absolutely 
indispensable to the final purposes of the creation, 
subserves the most important ends, and carries 
with it consequences such as will make it the 
general, if not the universal law of all finite 
natures, in all worlds/' 

Upon principles merely physical this opinion 
is perhaps the most rational and sound that could 
be formed, and was therefore adopted without 
hesitation, or qualification, as a position that 
could not safely be disputed, in a discussion based 
upon those principles. Yet, when we learn from 



374 THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 

Revelation, that a change shall be effected in the 
bodies of the saints at the Last Day, in which 
every thing that is of the earth and earthy, — the 
whole nature, as it would seem, of the first man, 
a creature of dust — shall be rejected ; and that 
on the same Great Day the elements shall be 
dissolved, the earth burned up, and the whole 
material heavens, including even light, apparently 
the purest, and most imperishable of material 
things, shall be utterly abolished, there is much 
ground for doubt whether anything partaking of 
the nature of matter will be suffered to remain : 
if indeed we may not hold the abolition of all 
matter for certain, since " all things that are 
made," and " which can be shaken" will be 
removed at the Great Day. And perhaps nothing 
has been revealed concerning the future state of 
the blessed, which more strongly shows the spiri- 
tuality of their condition, than this abolition of 
material light. The city they shall inhabit shall 
enjoy, without the aid of the solar heavens, a 
perpetual day. 

" Nor sun nor moon they need, nor day nor night, 
God is their temple, and the Lamb their light." 

It is difficult to suppose that any thing resem- 
bling the emanation of material rays is intended, 
though such a notion is encouraged by the appear- 
ance of Christ at his transfiguration, when " his 
face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was 
white as the light ;" (Matt. chap, xviii.) and 
without some supposition of the kind, the vision 



THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 375 



of the heavenly Jerusalem fades completely from 
before the eye of the imagination. 

On the other hand, there is little or no ground 
for supposing that matter has any inherent imper- 
fections, such as would necessarily render it unfit 
to be employed in the construction of a world 
from which all evil was excluded. We know not 
whether even such forms of matter as exist upon 
this earth, are necessarily sources of physical 
imperfection ; and it would be just as easy to 
imagine the " new earth" to be composed of such, 
did not Scripture discountenance the supposition, 
as to conceive it limited in any way, yet without 
imperfection. Our first parents were created 
peccable indeed, (and so far, we may perhaps 
venture to say, less perfect than any of the inha- 
bitants of the future heavens and earth, wherein 
will dwell nought but righteousness), yet without 
the stain of actual guilt ; and it is not clear that 
matter was at all in fault, and that the original 
transgression consisted in indulging in any for- 
bidden sensual gratification : on the contrary, 
the offence appears to have been wholly of a 
spiritual nature ; — the indulgence of a desire after 
the knowledge of good and evil ; the " mortal 
taste" of which effected first a spiritual ruin and 
corruption, and then, through the mysterious 
union of body and soul, rendered Adam and his 
descendants liable to corporeal dissolution also.* 

* If the corruption of his fleshly nature was not rather caused 
in the same manner as the sterility of the ground; which was 
not corrupted by Adam, but " cursed for his sake." 



376 



THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 



And Christ the second Adam put on the whole 
nature of man, sin except ; in that nature He 
succumbed to death, and in that nature he tri- 
umphed over Death : and it therefore can scarcely 
be doubted, that those who shall hereafter resem- 
ble him might, without necessarily retaining* any 
corruption of nature, retain some portion at least 
of their materiality. Among the innumerable 
worlds which modern science has opened to 
the contemplation of man, surely there must be 
some, besides this speck of earth, inhabited by 
rational and responsible creatures ; and yet, 
though not less materiel than the inhabitants of 
earth, entirely sinless, and enjoying, through the 
whole of their perennial existence, the favour and 
presence of God. And while we may conjecture 
that there are material worlds pure from the stain 
of sin, we know, at the same time, that there are 
immaterial beings, who are utterly fallen and 
corrupt ; and who, whether they take delight or 
not in the material impurities which they can 
and do tempt men to commit ; have at least no 
such repugnance to them, as cannot be overborne 
by their hostility to the Source of all good. Yet 
it may be necessary to the fulfilment of some to 
us unknown ends of God's government, that these 
beings also, should be transferred to a different 
and more spiritual world. Christ, to effect man's 
redemption, took upon him the seed of Abraham ; 
but by the sacrifice in that nature performed by 
him, he reconciled unto himself things in heaven 
as well as things in earth, and will, probably by 



THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 377 

virtue of the same mysterious sacrifice, subdue 
all things to Himself at the Last Day. 

The future existence of the blessed then will 
be, not in the present visible heavens ; — for these, 
though they constitute the material throne of 
God, and are the stage and proper sphere of the 
agency of many angelic beings, are but symbols 
and figures of the true, and will at a destined 
period pass away and give place to new heavens ; 
nor will it consist simply in a spiritual communion 
with the Father of Spirits, without any certain 
locality ; — for men will still be embodied, and 
enjoying a certain corporeal proximity to Christ, 
after the likeness of whose glorious body they 
will be fashioned, having " spiritual bodies," 
and whether with any remnant of materiality we 
know not — but their future life will be on the 

NEW EARTH AND IN THE HOLY CITY.* 

With respect to this holy city one question yet 
remains to be considered. We are informed by 
St. John, that it shall " come down from God out 
of heaven." Is it not then now actually existing 
in heaven ? or will it be created at the time when 
" all things are made new?" Both suppositions 
are probably true in part. For Christ has already 
in bodily form ascended into heaven, and is glo- 
rified now, sitting at the right hand of God, as 
the saints shall be glorified hereafter, when they 



* See Appendix, 



378 THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 

are enthroned with him. Whatever idea of lo- 
cality then we attach to the New Earth and the 
Holy City, regarded as the abodes of embodied 
spirits, we must attach the same idea to those now 
existing heavens, in which Christ dwells with the 
Father, beyond and above the material heavens — 
" high throned above all height." And the ta- 
bernacle of God which shall be with men, is it 
not the same tabernacle which was shown to 
Moses in the Mount as a pattern, the tabernacle 
which the Lord has already pitched, and not 
man ; and into which two thousand years ago, 
Christ entered? The mansions which the re- 
deemed shall occupy in the New Jerusalem were 
prepared from the foundation of the world ; made 
ready long ago for the reception of the guests, 
who, having obtained their white wedding gar- 
ments, shall enter to celebrate the marriage 
feast, and chaunt " the inexpressive nuptial song." 
To such a place of happiness St. Paul seems to 
allude, when he bids his disciples set their affec- 
tions on things above, where Christ sitteth, at the 
right hand of God.* 

In the city shall be, moreover, a " pure river 
of water of life, proceeding out of the throne of 
God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street 
of it, and on either side of the river, was the tree 
of life, which bare twelve kind of fruits, and 
yielded her fruit every month, and the leaves of 
the tree were for the healing of the nations." 



* Coloss. iii. 2. 



THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 379 

These things, whatever we are to understand by 
the description here given of them, are now 
existing in heaven, whence they shall come down 
to the new earth. " To him that overcometh," 
says the Spirit to the Church,* " will I give to eat 
of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the 
paradise of God." In the prophecies of Ezekiel, 
chap, xlviii. is contained part of a minute de- 
scription of a new Jerusalem, seen by the prophet 
during the Babylonish Captivity, when he was 
brought in the visions of God into the land of 
Israel, and set upon " a very high mountain, by 
which was as the frame of a city on the south." 
" Waters issued from under the threshold of the 
house" — " and on the back of the river were very 
many trees on the one side and on the other. 1 ' — 
" And it shall come to pass that every thing that 
liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers 
shall come, shall live ;" " and by the river upon 
the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, 
shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall 
not fade, neither shall the leaf thereof be con- 
sumed : it shall bring forth new fruit according 
to his months, because these waters issued out of 
the sanctuary : and the fruit thereof shall be for 
meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine'' In this 
remarkable vision is evidently described the 
Church of God now on earth, which, like the 
temple of Solomon, is formed after the patterns 
of things in the heavens, and of that " Jerusalem 



* Uev. ii. 7. 



380 THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 

which is above," (Galatians chap. iv. 25.) and 
which St. John, who most strikingly coincides 
with Ezekiel " being carried away in the spirit to 
a great and high mountain," saw descending out 
of heaven. 

That this Holy City, of which God shall be 
the temple, and shall set his throne therein, is 
above and separate from the material heavens, 
seems to be implied in some of the visions of 
Ezekiel. He beheld four " winged creatures" 
(cherubim — powers of the material heavens) which 
" ran and returned as the appearance of a flash 
of lightning,"* and a -'firmament," that is, an 
expansion, such as " divided the waters from the 
waters" in Genesis, was "stretched out over their 
heads." Above the firmament was the " likeness 
of a throne/' and on the throne " as the appear- 
ance of a man," and a brightness was round about 
him, — " the likeness of the glory of the Lord." 
Ezekiel chap. i. And in chapter x, in the fir- 
mament above the heads of the cherubims there 
appeared as the likeness of a throne. Afterwards 
(vv. 18, 19, 20.) " the glory of the Lord departed 
from off the threshold of the house, and stood 
over the cherubims." " This," he continues, "is 
the living creature that I saw under the God of 
Israel by the river of Chebar ; and I knew that 
they were the cherubims." In the Book of 



* This cannot but suggest the " cherubims and a flaming 
sword which turned every way" to guard the path to the tree 
of life ; placed at the eastern part of Eden. 



THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 381 

Revelations however, where a similar vision is 
described, (chap, iv.) the cherubic creatures were 
not under, but round about and in the midst of, 
the throne. And while in Ezekiel there was a 
firmament resembling crystal above the living 
creatures and under the throne, St. John places 
his "sea of glass like unto crystal before the 
throne. But whether there be at present any 
" firmament" interposed between the material 
heavens and the Holy City which is above, or 
not, a time, we are assured, will come, when 
there shall be no separation, but the heavenly 
city shall be upon the new earth, and the new 
heavens be extended over it. 

Nor is this the only change which shall take 
place in the Great City. To a certain extent it 
also shall be made new. " We are come," says 
St. Paul, # in a passage before quoted, " unto 
mount Zion and unto the city of the living God, 
the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable 
company of angels, to the general assembly and 
church of the first-born, which are written in 
heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the 
spirits of just men, made perfect, and to Jesus 
the mediator of a new covenant." He seems to 
be here describing both the church and king- 
dom now on earth, which he is contrasting with 
the first, the Mosaic dispensation, and the future 
church-glorified also. For the reward of the 
" first-born, whose names are written in heaven" 



* Heb. xii. 22. 



382 THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 



is evidently in great part reserved ; kept in store 
for them against the Great Day : when, according 
to the latter part of the same chapter, God shall 
" shake not the earth only but heaven," and 
" remove" (or put aside) those things which are 
shaken, as things which are made, that those 
things which cannot be shaken may remain.* 

May we not then be permitted to conjecture, 
that the Great City shall become the abode of 
all living beings : not only of angelic creatures 
and of the redeemed from the present earth, but 
of the rational and beatified inhabitants of all 
now existing worlds ? And that its foundations 
shall extend, beyond the "flaming walls of the 
world" that now is, through spaces immeasurable 
by mortal man ? For the New Jerusalem shall 
not, like the old, occupy a small part of the earth, 
but rather, like the Christian Church, as foreseen 
by Isaiah, when "the earth shall be filled with 
the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters that 
cover the depths of the sea,"f it shall be co-ex- 
tensive with the plain on which it stands. All 
abominable and condemned things shall be not 
without Jerusalem, yet upon the earth, like the 
Gehenna of the Jews, where the dead and the 



* Similarly in Matthew. Chap. xxiv. v. 29. The stars shall 
fall from heaven, and "the powers of the heavens shall be 
shaken ;" caused to rock, to reel, to totter. All those forces, 
as we may venture to interpret the words, which sustained 
matter, and in which it had its being, shall falter, fail, and pass 
away. 

-f* So in Lowth's translation. 



THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 383 

filth of the city were consumed with fire; but 
beyond both, far from the Divine presence. Yet 
shall the immense tracts of the new earth be tra- 
versed with ease by the gloriously embodied 
spirits that inhabit them, for " there shall be no 
more sea," — nothing, it may be, to impede the 
interchange of happiness and intimate communion 
of saints ; and they, wandering where they will, 
even to the uttermost parts, shall still be led by 
the hand of God, still bask in the full splendour 
of " uncreated rays," still be "sitting with Christ 
in his throne, even as he also is set down with 
the Father in his throne." " He that hath an 
ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the 
Churches." * 

To how vast a height above the speculations of 
philosophy have we now been led ! Our compre- 
hension of Scripture may be imperfect indeed, 
our view of the celestial glories obscure and dim, 
but that which we feebly grasp and dimly see, is 
real, and substantial ; bearing the same relation 
to the future scenes imagined or invented by men, 
that a landscape seen through a mist bears to the 
splendid but transient visions of a dream. The 
resurrection of the body being a truth undis- 
coverable by reason, nay, seeming rather to im- 
pede than to forward our conjectures respecting 
a future state, it has been commonly put out of 
sight even by those who acknowledge the autho- 



* See Appendix. 



384 THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 

rity of Scripture, and they have busied them 
selves in painting scenes of bliss and glory foi 
the " immortal soul," in some fantastic world 
above ; in some dazzling regions of the presenl 
heavens, which are even now waxing old, and 
are ready to disappear. A poor exchange foi 
the soul, to transfer it from earth only to thai 
upper world which shall be abolished on the 
same Day ! 

It would seem that some minds have even an 
aversion to the belief in embodied existence 
beyond the grave. How commonly do men speak, 
for instance, of a soul being, at death, " sent 
naked and shivering into the presence of its 
Judge." Whereas the Bible and the Creed tell 
them simply that " men shall rise again with their 
bodies, and give account of their own works ;" 
that "the time of the dead that they should be 
judged" is at the end of the world. The New 
Jerusalem is to descend out of heaven : yet 
scarcely in one instance in a hundred do men 
expect to be in God's presence otherwise than by 
ascent to Him. A new earth is to be prepared 
for the reception of the redeemed ; yet the 
heavenly Canaan and new Jerusalem, which will 
then and there be established, are either forgotten 
altogether, or placed on the present earth during 
a millennium ; as if the final state of man, being 
" heavenly," would not admit of them ! Errors 
which would soon be corrected, if imagination 
were consulted less, and Scripture more : parti- 



THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 385 



cularly if that decree were acquiesced in, which 
does not exempt the children of Adam from death, 
but leaves their souls in Hades, and suffers their 
thoughts to perish, until God shall see it good 
to quicken them, and clothe the mortal in immor- 
tality. 



CHAPTER X. 

GENERAL CONCLUSION. 

SINCE man fell from his first estate, and 
brought himself under sentence of death, the 
unextinguished love of His Creator has manifested 
itself chiefly under the form of compassion, in 
devising compensations or remedies. But it 
happens not unfrequently that men, too easily 
counting on the ample provision which God's 
mercy has made, forget from how dark a doom 
they have been delivered, and by how great a 
sacrifice. The entire gospel is to them summed 
up in the words " There is now no condemna- 
tion." They remember not that all divine favour 
is mercy shown for His sake who died on the 
cross ; and go on their ways complacently, their 
eyes half closed both to the deadliness of sin, and 
the inestimable value of the Atonement. That 
sect which, calling itself Christian, denies the 
divinity of Christ, has gone furthest in this course 
of error : maintaining that it is even unjust in 

c c 



386 



GENERAL CONCLUSION. 



the Almighty to condemn those who, among 
them, are esteemed good men ; inasmuch as their 
virtues more than atone for their failings, and 
they deserve heaven for their own goodness 
sake ! 

An error not unlike this is committed by those 
who, presuming upon God's promises of confer- 
ring immortality, yet consider not the means by 
which eternal life has been procured, nor the 
conditions upon which it is offered. Their doc- 
trine of a future state involves a denial of the 
value of Christ's interposition ; being founded 
on the assumption that immortality is the birth- 
right of every man. Whereas man is no more 
naturally immortal than he is naturally sinless ; 
and cannot recover life, except through Him who, 
" on the third day, rose again from the dead." 
And therefore their attempt is worse than useless, 
who endeavour to disarm death of its sting, and 
overcome the grave, by philosophical arguments. 
It involves a double error ; it dishonours both 
God, and his word. It substitutes reason for 
revelation ; and ascribes that to the inborn vigour 
of the soul, which is the office and prerogative of 
the quickening Spirit of Christ. Not only must 
man, if without the gospel of Christ, have re- 
mained ignorant of immortality, but without the 
death and resurrection of Christ, destitute of 
immortality. The slave of Sin, and Death, and 
Satan, he cannot traverse, nor bridge over, the 
fearful gulf that separates earth from heaven. 



GENERAL CONCLUSION. 



387 



It was the Son of Man who, returning thither, 
clad in the spoils of Hades, 

" Paved after Him a broad and beaten way, 
Over the dark abyss."* 

If any one should object to this view of mans 
mortality, that Adam's sentence included eternal 
death; and that therefore he must have been 
originally created imperishable, — whether in hap- 
piness or in misery, whether embodied or disem- 
bodied, — the answer is obvious. Eternal death 
is the consequence of that resurrection unto dam- 
nation, which is, no less than resurrection unto 
life, the consequence of Christ's victory over the 
grave. The eternal misery of the wicked cannot 
therefore be termed a consequence of the sentence 
passed on Adam (and still less a part of the sen- 
tence), unless we may connect, by way of conse- 
quence, the fall and the redemption of man. It 
has indeed been argued above, that we ought to 
consider the fall, without the redemption, to be 
impossible ; but this wholly on the ground that 
the Almighty, whose power we presume not to 
limit, has in fact joined them together, and we 
know not what we should violate in putting them 
asunder, nor can venture so to do, though our 
minds can trace no necessary connection between 
them. " We are greatly ignorant how far things 
are considered, by the Author of nature, under 



* Paradise Lost. Book II. 



388 



GENERAL CONCLUSION. 



the single notion of means and ends, so that it 
may be said, this is merely an end, and that 
merely means, in His regard."* The Almighty 
is bound by no rules but such as He hath made : 
He can employ what means, and appoint also 
what consequences He will ; or rather nothing 
should be esteemed merely a consequence or 
means ; since to Him no means are indispensable, 
no consequences unavoidable ; but all causation 
and instrumentality whatever are but the results 
of His absolute decree. We must ascribe then 
the " second death" to the power of Christ, not 
regarding it as inflicted in part execution of 
Adam's sentence, the " first death," the whole of 
which will be abolished, along with Hades, at the 
time of the end. The first death was the con- 
sequence of the departure of beings till then 
innocent from the law of God their Creator ; the 
second will be the consequence of the rejection, 
by fallen beings, of the mercy of God their 
Redeemer. That all had been redeemed from 
death shall be proved by the resurrection of all ; 
while punishment shall be inflicted on many, be- 
cause they had been redeemed in vain.f 

To recount now the chief conclusions to which 



* Butler's Analogy. Part. II. Chap. IV. 

\ None can be exempted, we may venture to say, merely on 
account of ignorance of the Gospel. For all have experienced 
the mercy and long-suffering extended to man for the Re- 
deemer's sake. Even in shutting their eyes to the " Power and 
Godhead" displayed in the works of creation, in not observing 



GENERAL CONCLUSION. 



389 



the foregoing pages are intended to lead: — en- 
deavours have been made to prove, — that the 
natural end of human existence is the "first death," 
the dreamless slumber of the grave, wherein man 
lies spell-bound, soul and body, under the domi- 
nion of Sin and Death, — that whatever modes of 
conscious existence, whatever future states, of 
" life" or of 6 4 torment," beyond Hades, are re- 
served for man, are results of our blessed Lord's 
victory over sin and death,— that the resurrec- 
tion of the dead must be preliminary to their 
entrance into either of the Future States, — and 
that the nature and even existence of these states, 
and even the mere fact that there is a futurity of 
consciousness, can be known only through God's 
revelation of Himself in the Person and in the 
gospel* of His Son. 

And the leading object and design of the whole 
work has been, to exhibit the value of this reve- 
lation of God ; by showing that man, without 
Christ, is a creature of dust, a worm of the 
ground ; and by pointing to Him whom the gos- 
pel reveals, " who only hath immortality," who 



Him who " sendeth rain and fruitful seasons," men were guilty 
of insensibility to that mercy of God, which is, in truth, alto- 
gether redeeming mercy ; since every provision for the support 
or comfort of man's life is furnished by One who, for the Re- 
deemer's sake, " would have all men come to repentance." 

* That being included under the term " gospel," which was 
" preached before unto Abraham," and unto Adam, and beheld 
as " promises" by the faithful, though not as yet " received" 
by them. 



390 



GENERAL CONCLUSION. 



only " hath life in Himself," and through whom 
only we can have " eternal life abiding in us." 

With the same object it has also been main- 
tained, that Scripture represents man to have 
been, even before his fall, a mortal being ; formed 
indeed for Paradise, but not in it, and of merely 
an earthly origin ; supported, while in Eden, by the 
Tree of Life, and falling, when banished thence, 
by natural relapse, to the dust whence he was 
taken ; and becoming (but for His interposition 
who obtained a probationary respite before the 
execution of the sentence, and converted death, 
through the promise of resurrection, into sleep), 
even as before he was called from nothingness. 
And it has been further urged, that they who 
savingly believe in the Redeemer receive, in this 
life, His quickening Spirit ; yet that neither their 
bodies nor souls are exempted from the (tempo- 
rary) dominion of death, although they have in 
that spirit an earnest and pledge that they shall 
be preserved in both body and soul, unto Christ's 
coming* ; and that they shall not cease to " live 
unto God," though they, with all the rest, go to 
one place, and for a period which appears but as 
a little moment, are unconsciously awaiting the 
trumpet-call of God. 

It cannot be denied that these conclusions, if 
true, are of much importance. They must ne- 
cessarily lead the mind that will embrace them, 
to take a darker view of the deadliness of sin, 
and a more humbling view of humanity ; to value 
revelation more highly, and reason less, to feel 



GENERAL CONCLUSION. 391 

more dependent on God, ascribing both future 
happiness and future being, to the Redeemer of 
the world, and the Giver of Life ; and to realise 
more fully the speedy return of the Lord, from 
whom we are parted only by a few brief earthly 
years, and a momentary slumber in the grave. 

But these conclusions are opposed by a nume- 
rous array of current opinions, natural feelings, 
and popular arguments ; and the writer who 
encounters such, however good his cause, must 
be contented with but partial success. Our na- 
ture shrinks from death : tender affection is un- 
willing to believe that departed friends are, even 
for a time, altogether gone, that earthly ties are 
completely sundered : and they who have not 
submitted to the severe training of the gospel of 
truth, and learned to fix their affections and 
hopes beyond the tomb, upon the second coming 
of their Lord, will reluctantly forego their belief 
that in a few short years they will rejoin those 
whom they loved, in some intermediate region of 
blissful repose. But God, by disappointing it, 
will more than realize their expectation, if they 
be faithful to Him. He will restore them both 
to those whom they hoped to meet, and to those 
whom they had left behind, and bless them at 
once with the consummate happiness of heaven 
itself. 

There is much also to flatter the pride of in- 
tellect, and to gratify a curious mind, in the 
popular arguments which advocate a belief in the 
immortality of the souL But the infallible testi- 



392 



GENERAL CONCLUSION. 



mony of Scripture proves all such search to be 
vain, for in Adam all die, and the dead know 
not anything. And a better philosophy proves 
all such search to be vain ; for the unassisted 
moral faculties can only lead us to a faint though 
anxious hope, that the almost Unknown God may 
show favour to the more virtuous of mankind : 
and if revelation in one sense confirms this hope, 
it contradicts it in another, by declaring that no 
favour will be extended to man, in reward, sim- 
ply, of unaided human virtue ; but that " the 
whole world has become guilty before God," and 
would have been condemned, but for that un- 
speakable mystery of compassionate love, which 
the heart of the " natural man" cannot conceive, 
and which to the most enlightened of men, — nay, 
even to the angels of light — is still unfathomable. 
None then can "by any means redeem his bro- 
ther ;" no, nor show how or why he should be 
redeemed ; but must " let that alone for ever," 
unless he have recourse to that gospel revelation, 
which discovers to perishing man— the resur- 
rection AND THE LIFE. 



A P P E N D I 



APPENDIX. 



Page 11. 

The Divine Unity not discoverable by human reason. 

THAT belief in the unity of the Supreme Power in 
the universe, if indeed it ought not rather to be 
termed a conjecture, which was entertained by some of the 
philosophers of Greece, affords no sufficient proof that 
the doctrine of the unity is discoverable by human reason. 
It is certain that much of the earlier Greek philosophy 
was derived from Oriental sources, and based upon ancient 
traditions, — or, in fact, upon divine revelation. And 
there can be little doubt that the simple primitive creed 
continued to influence the systems of the rival teachers 
of knowledge, long after the origin and authority of the 
creed was forgotten. 

But even granting that a belief in the Divine Unity 
was in some instances the spontaneous produce of phi- 
losophical reasonings alone, it was still little better than 
a conjecture, far preferable indeed, to any of the cum- 
brous and corrupt systems of polytheism, but neither 
deeply rooted, nor established by solid arguments. 

And it seems that reason can never make a nearer 
approximation to the truth than this, — that the whole 
constitution and administration of the universe has 
been appointed and is conducted as it were, as it would 
be, by One Mind. Surely it is not inconceivable that 
there should have been from eternity more than one 
being of perfect wisdom and goodness,' and of infinite 
power : we may say infinite, because whatever was the 
will of one such being must, we may suppose, be the 
will of all the rest. This does not seem harder to believe 
than are some of the mysterious truths concerning the 
Godhead which have been partly revealed to us. To the 



396 



APPENDIX. 



doctrine of the Divinity of the Son of God there have 
been "oppositions of science, falsely so called:" but 
Scripture plainly declares, against all opposers, the God- 
like Majesty of the Son of God, and His co-equality 
with the Father. The Christian who duly feels the depth 
of this mystery will do well to receive with hesitation 
any pretended a priori philosophical proof in matters so 
far above his ken. 

Page 13. 

Natural Religion not necessary to the support of Re- 
velation, 

Lord Brougham has saidf " It is a vain and ignorant 
thing to suppose that Natural Theology is not necessary 
to the support of Revelation. The latter may be untrue 

though the former be admitted But Revelation 

cannot be true if Natural Religion be false ; and cannot 
be demonstrated strictly by any argument, or established 
by any evidence, without proving or assuming the latter." 
He observes, that even if a messenger, known to be not 
of this earth, were to work miracles before our eyes, in 
proof of his (pretended) mission, we should still be en- 
titled to disbelieve every word of his story. 

Though this be admitted as a general statement, as 
long as the character of the miracles worked, and of the 
story told, are excluded from consideration, it still deserves 
to be inquired, Whether in the instance which has actu- 
ally occurred, Christ being the messenger, Christianity 
the message, there was not enough to satisfy a candid and 
philosophic mind of the existence, the power, and the 
will of God; without any aid from Natural Theology. 
The wonderful acts of Christ displayed something more 
than supernatural power : they indicated in many in- 
stances a knowledge equal to the power ; and in nearly 
all a benevolence which our moral nature will hardly 



* Natural Theology, p. 204. 4th. ed. 



APPENDIX. 



397 



allow us to think compatible with an intention to de- 
ceive; a benevolence shewn both by the immediate 
effect and apparent end of the miracles, — to relieve 
present suffering, and by their professed object, — to 
authenticate a new revelation of the divine counsels. If 
these wonderful acts, alone, be insufficient to convince, 
yet it seems that the miracle and the message, the attest- 
ation and the thing attested, taken together, ought to be 
enough. Moreover, whatever opinion on this subject we 
might otherwise be inclined to form, Scripture, — as will 
presently be pointed out, — seems plainly to declare the 
absolute and entire sufficiency of the miracles and 
preaching of Christ. 

And this, not indeed without recognition of the prin- 
ciples upon which the truths of Natural Theology are 
deduced, but without any " assumption of those truths 
as postulates'' For there is nothing in a miracle to 
prevent our applying to it the very principles upon which 
we proceed, in inferring the attributes of God from the 
ordinary works of nature. The mode of reasoning is 
precisely the same, whether the phenomena on which 
we reason are miraculous or not. The miracles of Christ, 
though comparatively rare, — being the exception and 
not the rule, — were yet sufficiently numerous and varied, 
and on a sufficiently grand scale, to furnish an argu- 
ment of the same kind, and as conclusive, as that derived 
from the constitution of nature. They were calculated 
to impress, and did impress, the minds even of the mono- 
theistic Jews with a belief that Christ possessed divine 
powers. It was difficult to assign any limits to the 
power of him, who could control material forces, and 
even create matter — as in the stilling of the storm and 
in the multiplying of the loaves — who could restore life, 
to the dead, compel rebellious spirits to obey him, and 
declare the secret thoughts of the hearts of men ; who 
heard the apostle Thomas say in his absence, Except I 
see and touch I will not believe ; and foretold to Peter, 
Thou shalt deny me thrice. In a passage of most con- 



398 



APPENDIX. 



elusive argumentation, and singular beauty,* Lord 
Brougham himself has shown, that we ought to infer, 
from a, few instances only, the existence of a Power and 
Intelligence, capable of repeating the same exertion for 
an indefinite number of times, and of executing various 
other acts, of a nearly similar character. " There is 
nothing peculiar — no limit — no sufficient reason, why 
the same power should not be again exercised and with 

the same result If indeed it be said that we never 

can be so certain of the things we infer as we are of 
those we have observed, and on which our inference is 
grounded, we may admit this to be true. But no one 
therefore denies the value of the science which is com- 
posed of the inferences. So we cannot be so well 
assured of the Deity's power to repeat and to vary and 
to extend his operations as we are of his having created 
what we actually observe, and yet our assurance may be 

quite sufficient to merit entire confidence We can 

no more avoid believing that the same power which 
created the universe can sustain it, — that the same 
power which created our souls can prolong their existence 
after death, than we can avoid believing that the power 
which sustained the universe up to the instant we are 
speaking, is able to continue it in being for a thousand years 
to come." All the instances to which Lord Brougham 
refers are, as indeed his argument required, those of 
natural phenomena ; but the principle applies to super- 
natural phenomena equally well. If " we cannot avoid 
believing that the same power which made all the animals 
and vegetables on our globe, suffices to people and provide 
other worlds in like manner," we must needs also believe 
that he who fed five thousand in the wilderness (besides 
women and children) could in like manner provide for 
the whole human race : and (as is argued in the Scrip- 
tures themselves, — though this is to anticipate) that he 
who raised himself from the dead can in like manner 



* See the Nat. Theol. note v. p. 255. 



APPENDIX. 



399 



raise all men. For there is nothing peculiar here, no 
limit whatever: — there was food for all who required 
it; the men that sat down were about five thousand, 
" and they did all eat and were filled. " If the words of 
Christ had ever wholly or partially failed to produce the 
effect intended, we might suspect a narrow limit ; and 
liken his works to those of a magician, who requires 
numerous accessories to ensure success. If when " he 
rebuked the winds and the sea" there had been only a 
brief and partial lull, and the ship had hardly escaped 
wreck, his disciples might have been excused for little- 
ness of faith ; but " immediately there was a great calm." 
We may even venture to say, that a philosophical Jew, 
a disciple of Christ, unless checked in his course of con- 
jectures by a knowledge of the purposes to be attained 
and the conditions to be fulfilled by a church militant on 
earth, might be excused for imagining that his Master 
was then performing only the first acts of an inchoate 
sovereignty, and was about to suspend all the laws of 
the material and spiritual worlds, and establish therein 
authorities of his own. 

In the ordinary affairs of life we term that which 
generally happens the rule, that which seldom happens, 
the exception : and if such a revolution as has just been 
supposed were actually completed, and the commonest 
phenomena of the present world were permitted to take 
place only in a few instances, and for special purposes, 
they would assume, in every respect, the character of 
miracles. The germination of a few grains of corn in 
the earth, and their subsequent increase in the ear to 
thirty or sixty fold, would be no less a miracle, a sign, 
and a wonder, than a shower of manna from heaven, 
or the multiplication of a few barley loaves, after a 
blessing pronounced over them. And what should 
hinder men from inferring unlimited power, intelligence, 
benevolence, from the then uncommon event, more than 
now, when the seasons come round with unerring regu- 
larity, and the kindly fruits of the earth are gathered in 



400 



APPENDIX. 



from myriads of fields ? The fertile plains, loaded with 
ripening grain, bear direct testimony to Almighty wisdom 
and goodness. And since he who fed five thousand 
could feed all men in like manner, the miracle bears 
testimony to the being and attributes of God, in no 
respect differing from that of the ordinary phenomenon, 
except in being more obvious. The very same principles, 
which lead the natural theologian to acknowledge, when 
he beholds a harvest, the power of the invisible God, 
would have required him, had he been one of the five 
thousand, to recognise in Christ the power of " God 
manifest in the flesh." 

" This, it may be said, is going too far : many have 
possessed the power of working miracles, in whom we 
do not acknowledge the presence of the fulness of the 
Godhead bodily. Surely Moses, who was greater than 
all succeeding prophets till John the Baptist,* ought, 
upon the principles just advocated, to have received divine 
honours. His miracles were upon the most extensive 
scale; the whole of the chosen people of God partook of 
the benefits they conferred. The powers exercised were 
always commensurate with the necessity which called 
them forth." The argument is not without weight ; but 
in truth it ought to be placed on the same side of the 
balance with those which at first sight it appears to coun- 
tervail. In every case, the miracle is a proof of the mis- 
sion of him by whom it is wrought. Where we behold 
extraordinary power exercised for great and good ends, 
we naturally give credence to the agent, and, if he be an 
apostle, we bow to the name of Christ: if a Hebrew 
legislator, adore the One God : and when He declares His 
heavenly origin, we bow the knee before the Son of God : 
and we cannot be justly charged with credulity, by those 
who, though they may reject revelation, do themselves 
give credence to that invisible agent, by whom power is 
ordinarily exercised for great and good ends. It need not 



* Deut. xxxiv. 10, and Matt. xi. 11. 



APPENDIX. 



401 



be denied, that had all the miracles worked in Egypt, in 
the Red Sea, and in the wilderness, been to all appear- 
ance performed solely by the power and at the will of 
Moses, men would have been justified in believing him, 
had he declared all which Jesus declared concerning 
himself. Whether the end be accomplished by natural, 
or by supernatural means, the inference is the same. 
There must be somewhere an intelligent cause adequate 
to the production of the effect : and not once only, but 
for an indefinite number of times ; and also adequate to 
the production of various other effects nearly resembling- 
it. And if the effect be, to increase the sum of human 
happiness, we infer benevolence as well as intelligence 
and power: we recognise the being and attributes of 
God, without reference to any " antecedent theology." 

The first converts to Christianity were Jews, who, it may 
be admitted, did possess an antecedent theology. But 
this operated, in the mass of the people, as a hindrance 
to the claims of Christ ; and impelled them to ascribe 
his miracles to assistance from " the prince of the devils;" 
while they only who were better minded confessed, No 
man could do the miracles which Thou dost, unless God 
were with him. Nor does human philosophy furnish any 
way of escape from such a conclusion, unless by aid of 
the very subterfuges, by which atheists have sought to 
disprove the doctrines of Natural Theology. 

And this antecedent theology of the Jews, from what 
source was it derived ? Not from a contemplation of the 
constitution of Nature, but from traditions concerning: 
One who had from time to time interposed in their 
behalf, with a mighty hand and stretched out arm sus- 
pending the natural laws. The only people of the ancient 
world who were in possession of those fundamental 
truths concerning the being and attributes of God, to 
which, it may be confessed, natural phenomena bear 
testimony, were the Jews ; a rude and stubborn race, — 
utterly without philosophy, — slow to believe,— but among 
whom supernatural phenomena had been rife. 

D D 



402 



APPENDIX, 



" The power of working miracles/' as Lord Brougham 
observes, " does not necessarily exclude either fraud or 
malice. The messenger might come from an evil as well 
as from a good being." . . . " A being capable of work- 
ing miracles might very well be capable of deceiving us." 
But neither does the mere power displayed in the ordi- 
nary operations of nature prove the absence of fraud or 
malice. And if we were to admit — for the sake of the 
argument, — the power of the Author of nature to be 
greater than that of Christ, in proportion as natural 
phenomena outnumber and outmeasure the supernatural, 
then it seems we should augment in the same proportion 
the possibility and the danger of deception. 

We must judge of the moral attributes by considering 
the ends for which the power is exerted. And if we can 
clearly discern the character of the end, we may judge 
as confidently from a supernatural as from an ordinary 
exertion of power. The constitution of nature is evi- 
dently calculated to promote happiness generally — to 
encourage and reward virtue — to check and punish vice. 
And though none of these ends is fully attained, we do 
not impugn the perfection of Divine goodness. What 
judgement then should we form, from a consideration of 
the apparent ends of the miracles of Christ ? There is 
not one of them, in which a benevolent purpose is not 
evident to the mind of a Christian : and the heart of that 
man is little to be envied, who could believe Christ 
morally capable of deception;* though he who, when 
the Nazarenes led him to the brow of the hill whereon 
their city was built, that they might cast him down 
headlong, " passed through them and went his way," 
and by whom the eyes of the two disciples were holden, 
while he, having risen, was explaining how it behoved 
him to rise, could, undoubtedly, have deceived, were 
such power and beneficence, as his, separable from truth. 



* See, as a warning, Mark iii. 29, 30. 



APPENDIX. 



403 



But if a being so mighty and apparently so benevolent 
were morally capable of deception, what assurance can 
Natural Religion furnish us, that this world is not under 
the administration of a malignant spirit, who will disap- 
point every hope of happiness formed in reliance on his 
promises, and who permits some enjoyment now, only 
because, for reasons unseen by us, it will be ultimately, 
or is in another sphere, subservient to the mischief and 
misery he delights in? Though the original witnesses 
of the miracles might justly have concluded that the 
power of Christ over nature was not inferior to that of 
the Author of Nature ; and though they might well have 
believed that he would never undergo death nor leave the 
earth, but be present to the end of the world, with inef- 
fable condescension instructing and healing men, they 
had not all that proof of his wisdom and benevolence which 
the lapse of centuries discovers to us. For experience 
has now sufficiently proved how wonderfully Christianity 
is calculated to meet the wants and promote the happi- 
ness of mankind ; and there is enough in the present 
relative condition of the christian and non-christian 
countries of the world to encourage the expectation that 
a period will at length arrive when the total amount of 
happiness ozoing to Christianity (in this life only), may 
equal that which the constitution of the natural world 
and the human heart (without the Christian religion), is 
calculated to afford. Should that period arrive, there 
will be a manifest proof, independent of all assumption 
of the truth of Christianity, that the miracles and teach- 
ing of Christ originated in a benevolence and wisdom in 
nowise inferior to that of Him who ordained the laws of 
which the Christian miracles were a subversion. 

But we have enough to convince us, without waiting 
for a happier period of the world and of the church; nay, 
there was enough, before even the grand and crowning 
miracle of the resurrection had demonstrated the truth 
and value of Christianity. They who were present when 
" Jesus wept" on his way to the tomb of Lazarus, — who 



404 



APPENDIX. 



stood by and heard the prayer which he uttered for their 
sakes, — who saw the dead man come forth at his com- 
mand, — and yet doubted, could never have been per- 
suaded to put their confidence in God, by exhortations 
to observe the beauty of the lilies of the field, or the 
repast spread daily for the fowls of the air ; and whoever 
can peruse St. John's account of this miracle, and see in 
the record no proof of the divinity of Christ, would 
derive no moral lesson from a proof, that the eye was not 
made by the blind operation of natural laws, nor honey- 
comb by the wisdom of a bee. 

Moreover, Scripture seems plainly to declare, as has 
been said, the sufficiency of the miracles of Christ, to 
gain credence for his doctrines in all candid minds. 
Throughout the New Testament the miracles are treated 
as evidence, in themselves, of his divine mission. " Though 
he had done so many miracles before them, yet the peo- 
ple believed not on him." And this is attributed simply 
to their blindness and hardness of heart ; and not to 
any disregard of the fundamental doctrines of religion 
natural or revealed, included in the Mosaic theology. 
When St. John in prison sent to enquire, Art thou he 
that should come ? no other reply was given, but " the 
dead are raised, the blind receive their sight, the poor 
have the Gospel preached to them." When secret mur- 
murs arose, at the pardon granted to the paralytic, they 
were quelled by the rebuke and the command — " that 
ye may know that the Son of Man hath authority on 
earth to forgive sins . . . Arise, take up thy bed, and 
go unto thine house." At the feast of the dedication 
the Jews inquired, How long dost thou make us doubt ? 
If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered 
them, " I told you and ye believed not : the works 

THAT I DO IN MY FATHER'S NAME, THEY BEAR WITNESS 
OF ME." 

POSTSCRIPT. 

Lord Brougham has quoted and adopted the sentence 
of Lord Bacon, that Natural Theology is the key of 



APPENDIX. 



405 



revelation, and opens our understanding to the genuine 
spirit of the Scriptures, but also unlocks our belief, so 
that we may enter upon the serious contemplation of the 
j divine power, the characters of which are so deeply graven 
in the works of creation. And he agrees with that great 
authority in holding it " clear that atheism is to be 
refuted not by miracles, but by the contemplation of 
nature," and admits his " distinction between revelation 
and natural religion, that the former declares the will of 
God as to the worship most acceptable, while the latter 
teaches his existence and powers, but is silent as to a 
ritual." 

Undoubtedly every mind imbued with the doctrines of 
Natural Theology, and convinced of their truth, will be 
disposed to enter upon the serious contemplation of the 
Divine Power ; and will read and rightly interpret the 
" characters graven in the works of creation." But the 
philosophic enquirer does not commence his perusal of 
those characters with a previous conviction of the exis- 
tence and attributes of the Deity. It is from a suspicion, 
a desire, a hope that by searching he may find out God, 
implanted in his mind by the Creator, that he first 
enters upon the serious contemplation of some of the 
innumerable characters that declare His power, wisdom, 
and goodness. This contemplation it is, which when it 
has been carried far enough, unlocks his belief in a God, 
and renders him truly a natural theologian. But Lord 
Bacon strangely represents Natural Theology as first 
unlocking our belief, and then leading us to the study of 
nature ! 

And if Natural Theology were requisite to open our 
understandings to the genuine spirit of the Scriptures, 
surely either the Author of Christianity, or at least the 
commissioned preachers of His gospel, would have ac- 
companied their exhortations to the Gentiles whose 
foolish heart was darkened, and who had become vain 
in their imaginations, with preliminary discourses on 
Natural Theology. But how different from this was the 



408 



APPElN^lX. 



apostolical preaching. The words of man's wisdom 
were altogether discarded. They sought to make One 
known, who had been crucified, dead, and buried, and 
on the third day rose again, and ascended into heaven, 
who had given them miraculous powers, commanded them 
to make known His will, and to promise eternal life 
through belief in His name, as they were ready to testify 
at the price of their lives. In and through Him, — 
whom to have seen was to have seen the Father, — by 
whom alone could men come to the Father, did they 
teach the attributes of the invisible God. And the fact 
that Christians have made the most correct Natural 
Theologians has proved the efficacy of their system. 

The Israelites in Egypt were sunk in idolatry, nearly 
as far removed as atheists from a knowledge of the one 
true God. Did Jehovah, who knew what was in man, 
lead them into the wilderness that they might have lei- 
sure to discern His glory in the heavens, and, like the 
inspired Job, hear His voice in the thunder, and discern 
His providence in the " balancing of the clouds," or in 
the rain that satisfied " the desolate and waste places, 
causing the bud of the tender herb to spring forth ?"* 
No : He forced them to acknowledge Him, by giving them 
water out of the flinty rock, and manna from heaven, 
and by visiting their relapses into idolatry and impiety 
with the most fearful supernatural punishments. 

Lord Bacon's distinction between Natural Religion 
and Revealed may be admitted, without conceding the 
necessity of an antecedent theology to " render the 
message of revelation unimpeachable." For there may 
be such a declaration of the will of God, and of the 
spiritual or ritual worship He requires, as to imply and 
prove His existence and attributes. This is really so 
simple and evident that a familiar illustration of it may 
suffice. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer receives 



* The consolation of (the Christian) Mungo Park. 



I 

APPENDIX. 407 

a letter enclosing money from one who confesses that he 
has defrauded the revenue, is there any man living who 
i would doubt the existence or the conscientiousness of 
the writer, or the reality of the alleged commission of 
fraud ? 

We may now proceed a step further, and not only 
deny the necessity of Natural Theology to the support of 
revelation, but even maintain that a belief in its doc- 
trines is not likely to remove, or lessen, any doubt 
which might be entertained concerning the worker of a 
miracle. " When Christianity was first promulgated, 
the miracles of Jesus were not denied by the ancients, 
but it was asserted that they came from evil beings, and 
that he was a magician." " Such an explanation," con- 
tinues Lord Brougham, " was not inconsistent with the 
kind of belief to which the votaries of polytheism were 
accustomed." This is true ; but the Jews also, mono- 
theists, and in possession of all which Natural Theology 
can teach, ascribes the miracles of Christ to the prince 
of the daemons. The doctrines of Natural Theology do 
indeed " secure our belief in that Being, whose good- 
ness they have taught us to trust," but do not prove that 
the worker of miracles is really a messenger sent from 
that Being. This must be shown, after all, by the 
character of the miracles, the messenger, the message. 
Christ cast out daemons, He healed the sick, He raised 
the dead; and appealed to these His miraculous acts 
alone, without any reference to an antecedent natural 
or revealed theology, in testimony to the attributes of 
that great Being, in whose power and authority He 
came. 

Page 21. 

The opinions of the early Christians respecting the state 
of the dead. 

" When the custom of praying for the dead began in the 
Christian Church," says Mr. Palmer, "has never been 



408 



APPENDIX. 



ascertained. We find traces of the practice in the second 
century : and either then, or shortly after, it appears to 
have been customary in all parts of the church." "The 
primary intention of prayers for the dead," says Arch- 
bishop Ussher, "had reference unto the day of resurrection; 
which also in divers places we find to have been expressly 
prayed for." That is, according to him, the words "rest," 
" refreshment," " peace," etc. in the early church prayers 
for the dead, meant what they mean in Scripture : — rest, 
"when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed;" — peace, 
through escape from that "troubled sea" of fire into 
which the wicked shall be cast at the judgement day, to 
find therein no peace ; — refreshment, " when the times 
of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord," 
at the "restitution of all things." "The primary in- 
tention of the Church in her supplications for the dead 
was," as Ussher repeats, " that the whole man, not the 
soul separated only, might receive public remission of 
sins and a solemn acquittal at the judgement of that 
great day."* 

These supplications were perhaps not necessarily un- 
scriptural in their spirit, not being intercessory. They 
may have been intended, quite at the first, merely to ex- 
press a pious and natural wish that the departed might 
" find mercy in that day," such as was felt by St. Paul ; 
or they may have been merely a calling upon God to 
make good his promises, and "avenge his own elect." 

But they assumed, after the lapse of two centuries, a 
widely different form. They became direct intercessions 
for the dead ; not for the whole man, but the soul sepa- 
rated only. And this change is a sufficient proof that 
the doctrine of the consciousness of the dead, (whether 
contained in Scripture and in apostolic teaching, or not) 
was not generally received through, nor did originate in, 



* See the Tracts for the Times, No. 72, which has furnished all the 
authorities used in this article. 



APPENDIX. 



400 



any oral tradition derived from the apostles. True or 
false, the doctrine was unknown in the early church. 
For it is utterly impossible that the first Christians, in 
making supplication for the dead, from hearts in which 
earthly affection was struggling for predominance, should 
not have prayed, and that chiefly if not solely, for present 
blessings on their departed friends, if they had supposed 
the soul separated only to be susceptible of such. In 
fact we find that as the natural but unscriptural belief in 
the immortality of the soul, apart from the body, gained 
ground, the prayers for the dead were changed from 
their primary intention, and intermediate blessings were 
continually prayed for. As Christians had formerly 
prayed that the dead might escape the fearful flames of 
Gehenna, so now, gradually perverting the meaning of 
the prayers, they entreated that they might be speedily 
relieved first from the ordeal of a purgatorial fire at the 
resurrection, and then from an all but inevitable flame 
which was imagined to await the soul, immediately on 
its separation from the body. 

Those who had departed from Scripture, (and from 
that apostolic teaching which must have been consistent 
with Scripture,) soon departed from each other : their 
opinions became, as has been said, various and vague. 
Yet it is somewhat difficult to establish this double pro- 
position, since expressions which may mean almost any- 
thing can hardly be proved to be contradictory or unlike. 
But let us endeavour to ascertain what was the most 
general opinion concerning the state of the dead, after 
the church prayers had been changed from their primary 
intention. Origen taught, that " such as depart out of 
this life after the common course of death, are disposed 
of according to their deeds and merits, as they shall be 
judged to be worthy, some into the place which is called 
hell, others into Abraham's bosom, and through divers 
other places and mansions." St. Hilary taught other- 
wise. All the faithful, according to him, were to be in 



410 



APPENDIX. 



Abraham's bosom, while the wicked are " hindered from 
coming by the gulf interposed between them." Lactan- 
tius taught, that all the souls, both of the righteous and 
the wicked, should be " detained in one common custody," 
until the time come when the great judge doth make 
trial of their doings ;" i. e. by exposing them to a myste- 
rious flame which shall bum the wicked, and do service 
to the righteous, who have " something in them that will 
repel or put back the force of the flame!" And the 
Greek church, differing from the rest in this, taught 
that (according to Luke xiii. 28, 29, 30,) men entered 
Abraham's bosom at the resurrection. " The body is 
buried in the earth, but the soul goeth in unknown 
places, waiting for the future resurrection of the dead : 
in which, O gracious Saviour, make bright thy servant, 
place him together with the saints, and refresh him in 
the bosom of Abraham." We need not mention the 
opinion of St. Ambrose, who was not taught by the 
apostles to say that " they that come not unto the first 
resurrection, but are reserved out of the second, shall be 
burned [in purgatorial fire] until they fulfil the times 
between the first and the second resurrection ,* or, if they 
have not fulfilled them, they shall remain longer in pun- 
ishment." Nor need we attach much weight to that of 
Augustine, who taught that souls went into " certain 
hidden receptacles," into which the souls of God's 
children might carry some of their lighter faults, which 
would hinder them from attaining heaven ; but from 
which they might be released by the prayers and alms 
deeds of the living. 

Let anyone who maintains that these individual writers, 
or churches, were in possession of an oral apostolic tra- 
dition concerning the dead, state what that tradition 
contained, and what it did not; and inform the world 
how he, by the light of reason, can distinguish the 
truth of God, as contained in uninspired writings, from 
the errors of man. 



APPENDIX. 



411 



Page 86. 

The derivation of life from material or corporeal sources. 

It may be worth while here to observe, although this 
point has no easily traced connection with the argument 
stated in the text, (and continued in book hi. chapter ii.) 
that it is not a whit less wonderful that sexual union, 
through blind desire, should produce a creature after the 
likeness of Adam, partaking of his corruption, and of his 
mortality, than that the sprinkling of water in baptism, 
and the eating and drinking of sacramental bread and 
wine, (not blindly, but with a lively faith,) should make 
men partakers, through the remission of sins and the 
sanctification of the heart, of the righteousness, life, and 
immortality of Christ, and transform them into His like- 
ness, producing out of the old man, a new creature. 
Though there is no easily traced connection, there is 
probably a real analogy here. The feast imperfectly and 
typically celebrated on earth is " the Marriage Supper 
of the Lamb." 

Page 111. 

Matter regarded as points invested with mechanical 
forces. 

" Our acquaintance with matter,* as every one knows, 
is nothing more than an acquaintance with its properties; 
or rather with those of its properties which affect our 
senses. But these properties of matter resolve themselves 
into so many species of motion — emanative or vibratory, 
and the motion implied in chemical combination. The 
resistance offered to the touch by solid bodies may seem 
an exception to this statement, but it is not so in fact : 
for the resistance of a solid surface is nothing but a 
propulsion operating within the minute sphere of that 
atomic force, which prevents the actual or mathematical 



* Physical Theory of another Life, page 272. 



412 



APPENDIX. 



contact of bodies. We know solid bodies therefore only 
by the rebound, which prohibits approximation within a 
certain limit. It is then a species of motion that conveys 
to us the idea of solidity. 

" In other words, for sustaining all the phenomena of 
the material world, mechanical and chemical, we need 
suppose nothing more than an infinite congeries of math- 
ematical points of attraction and repulsion, — attraction 
and repulsion of several kinds." 

It is indeed perfectly true that there are no bodies 
known to us so perfectly hard and impenetrable as to be 
susceptible of no compression : nor are there many, at 
least upon the earth's surface, which remain altogether 
without chemical or internal changes of some kind or 
other. Even the diamond is dissoluble by extreme heat : 
and it is probable from analogy that even the slightest 
changes of temperature affect its dimensions, and produce 
a certain motion among its particles. 

But on the other hand we can hardly entertain a doubt 
that the particles, or mathematical centres of attraction 
and repulsion, when acted upon by no external agency, 
chemical or mechanical, are perfectly at rest, their forces 
mutually balancing one another. When a weight is 
suspended by a chain, and is exposed to no mechanical 
vibrations, and to no changes of heat or of electricity in 
any form, there is not any reason to think that motion 
of any kind takes place among its particles. But forces 
are evidently exerted, and are acting incessantly in 
opposition to the gravity of the weight and chain. 

And it is also true that our notion of force is altogether 
derived from our experience of resistance to muscular 
effort, the degree of which is known to us partly by 
touch : and that this resistance never takes place without 
some sort of rebound, owing chiefly to the elasticity of 
matter. But even if our own bodies, and all other bodies 
whatever, were perfectly incompressible, so that no re- 
bound, — which can take place only after compression, — 



APPENDIX. 



413 



could be produced by contact, we should still, by our 
consciousness of muscular effort, by the opposition of 
matter to our will, become conscious of what we term 
force. In fact natural philosophy gives us no reason to 
believe that any nezv force is ever generated among the 
particles or points of matter, except when organized 
matter, animal or vegetable, is subjected to the influence 
of mind. All motion in unorganized matter appears to 
result simply from the disengagement of forces by some 
action of other forces. If we were sufficiently acquainted 
with the laws of nature, we should be able to trace this 
as clearly in the devastating sweep of the hurricane, or 
in the sudden flash of lightning, as we can in the fall of 
the delicately poised snows of an Alpine mountain, when 
detached from their cliffs by the vibrations of a voice in 
the air. 

According to the theory above quoted, " the visible 
and palpable world is Motion, constant and uniform, 
emanating from infinite centres, and springing during 
every instant of its continuance, from the Creative En- 
ergy." According to the theory here preferred, the 
same world consists of a number of mathematical centres 
of Force, which are opposed, either wholly or partially 
by other forces, concentrated and radiating in like man- 
ner; — centres of force, which zohcther at rest among 
themselves or not, require the incessant exertion of an 
equal amount of Sustaining Energy to continue them in 
being. This is confirmed by our own consciousness. 
We find that as great an effort is required to resist force, 
— as when we hold a weight in the extended arm in 
opposition to gravity, — as to generate motion. 

These centres of force need not be, strictly, infinite in 
their numbers. For though, on the one hand, space is 
in thought infinitely divisible ; and there is no limit to 
the number of points of force which the Creator could 
collect within a given space, and no limit to the intensity 
of force which, if it were His will, He might suffer them 
to arrive, there is on the other hand no limit to the re- 



414 



APPENDIX. 



moteness at which He might place them, not allowing 
them, by the same Will, ever to approach nearer. 

But whichever theory be preferred, the conclusion as 
to the feasibility of an annihilation of the material uni- 
verse is the same. On either theory, " the instantaneous 
cessation of this energy, or its reaching its close, is 
abstractedly quite as easily conceived of as is its con- 
tinuance; and whether, in the next instant, it shall 
continue or shall cease, whether the material universe 
shall stand, or shall vanish, is an alternative of which, 
irrespective of other reasons, the one member may be 
taken as easily as the other: just as the moving of the 
hand, or the not moving it, in the next moment, [or the 
sustaining with it a weight, for a time, and then ceasing 
to exert the sustaining force] depends upon nothing but 
our volition. The annihilation of the solid spheres, — 
the planets and the suns that occupy the celestial spaces, 
would not be an act of irresistible force, crushing that 
which resists compression, or dissipating and reducing 
to an ether that which firmly coheres ; but it would be 
the non-exertion, in the next instant, of a power which 
has been exerted in this instant : it would be, not a 
destruction, but a rest; not a crash and ruin, but a 
pause." We would add, however, to this theory, that 
the principle of polarity, especially as exemplified by 
crystallization, lead us to suppose that the forces of the 
material world are not ultimately referable in all instances 
to mere points, but reside, perhaps even more frequently, 
in lines, or in planes. Such a disposition of forces is 
just as easily conceivable as the other, and it is not 
ultimately resolvable into it. 

Page 152. 
The Religion of the Gentiles. 
" The light of God," says Dr. Southey, " which at the 
beginning was imparted to man, hath never been extin- 
guished. From the patriarchs it descended to the pro- 
phets, and from the prophets to the apostles : but there 



APPENDIX. 



415 



; were many who wandered and lost the light, and their 
offspring became inheritors of darkness." The ancient 
Greeks, in proceeding to plant a colony, were religiously 
careful to carry with them, from their former home, the 
fire which should be used in their new habitations ; and 
had the genuine flame which came down from heaven 
been preserved with equal care, the incense of adoration 
might have arisen, in regions the most remote, equally 
pure and equally acceptable in all. Though it was for- 
bidden knowledge which led to the immediate downfall 
of our first parents, yet it is probable that many things 
were familiar to them while in Paradise, of which in their 
corrupt state they retained only an imperfect conception, 
and could give only an inadequate account ; while there 
may have been mysteries, known to them, which from 
their nature could not be divulged to those who had not 
been initiated in Paradise : yet all that Adam was capa- 
ble of imparting might have been known, had men 
chosen to retain God in their knowledge, to all the Gen- 
tile world, even up to the present day. Yet perhaps, 
had patriarchal religion thus been spread over the earth, 
the fulness of time would have arrived before the lapse 
of forty centuries ; and the seed of the Word, falling on 
ground so prepared, would have produced sixty or an 
hundred fold in every clime ! For it is probable that the 
patriarchal religion was rich in vital and evangelical truths ; 
— that the God, who " left not Himself without witness," 
even among those who had forgotten His first revelations, 
vouchsafed to reveal to those who called on His name, 
the predestined redemption of mankind; — that Christ, 
the "seed of the woman," was distinctly foreshown; — 
and that many, even before Abraham, "rejoiced to see 
his day, and saw it and were glad :" glad, because man- 
kind even then enjoyed, through Him, promises of re- 
surrection unto life, and of heavenly rest for the weary 
pilgrims of this world. 

But the majority of the descendants of Noah went 
astray : and not retaining God in their knowledge, ne- 



416 



APPENDIX. 



cessarily lost their knowledge of resurrection and of 
immortality. The religion of the polytheists was one of 
terror and darkness ; and for the most part they sorrowed 
for the dead, " as they that have no hope." Amidst this 
darkness human philosophy was exerted in vain. Poly- 
theism indeed was opposed : but what was gained by a 
recognition of the Unity was lost by a disregard of the 
moral character of the Deity : the God of the philoso- 
phers became a mere philosophical abstraction ; and was 
seldom addressed in prayer. Among the common peo- 
ple on the other hand, if the gift of an abundant harvest 
occasioned any festive celebration, or any display of 
thankfulness, men failed to recognise in the giver a 
Universal Lord, the Supreme Cause of all : they saw but 
a divine controller of the seasons, a ruler of sunshine and 
rain. They gave the air to his dominion; but they knew 
not that the sea also was his, and he made it, and his 
hands prepared the dry land : and if they worshipped 
Jupiter in one temple, they had another for Neptune, 
and yet another for Ceres ; and being ignorant that there 
was one absolute king, as has been said above, who tole- 
rates, for reasons of his own, the rebellion of His servants, 
they had no just conception of the temporary sufferance 
of evil, and minor calamities filled them with dread, death 
vith dismay and despair. 

Page 211. 

The present tendencies of the world not towards a uni- 
versal reign of Christianity. 

A variety of Scriptural proofs might have been ad- 
duced in proof of this point ; but one will be fully suffi- 
cient. The book of revelation informs that in fact we 
are not to expect a universal reign of Christianity, as the 
result of causes now in operation. It contains an account 
of the chief events in the spiritual history of the world, 
commencing with the infancy of Christianity, or at some 
period yet future, and carried up to the general Judge- 



APPENDIX. 417 

rnent and the dissolution of the earth by fire. And it 
presents a succession of awful pictures of human wicked- 
ness and Divine wrath. The seals, the trumpets, the 
vials are all charged with the righteous judgements of 
God, inflicted in punishment of the rebellions then ex- 
isting. Nowhere can we discover a season wherein 
the wicked shall cease from troubling, and receiving a 
meet recompense of trouble, until the " thousand years" 
commence, during which Satan shall be bound, and the 
souls of martyrs shall live, and reign with Christ over the 
emancipated kingdoms. It would seem then that not- 
withstanding the influence of Christianity, the knowledge 
of the Lord shall not " cover the earth, as the waters 
that cover the depths of the sea," before the close of 
this dispensation : but that the general tendencies of the 
world are towards greater and greater sinfulness, until 
the conquests of the prince of darkness are terminated by 
a special interposition of the Almighty, and the usurper 
is cast down from his throne. 

And we know not that sin will wholly cease, even 
during the millennium ; while we are expressly told, (a 
fact which is often most wonderfully disregarded by 
expositors of prophecy) that multitudes, " the number of 
whom is as the sand of the sea," shall enlist themselves 
in the service of the Devil during the short post-millen- 
nial season of liberty which shall precede his everlasting 
condemnation. 

Page 223. 

The future condition of the heathen. 

The message of God in His Gospel is an offer of 
salvation dependent not merely on what Christ has done 
for men, but on their faith in what He hath done, and is 
willing to do. He who overcame the sharpness of death 
opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. But we 
have now to ask, are there any exceptions to the rule, 
that a knowledge of the Cross is as necessary as the 
cross ? Christianity itself furnishes one, in the salvation 

E E 



418 



APPENDIX. 



of baptized infants without faith on their parts: and 
another perhaps in that of those children of believing 
parents who are " not unclean but holy." And we have 
another in the case of the children of the faithful servants 
of God who lived before the coming of Christ: who, 
though unbaptized, though not members of that king- 
dom of heaven which was not then established on earth, 
we still trust are inheritors of the kingdom which is to 
come. And, in the silence of Scripture, no conclusive 
reason can be assigned, why, if a child of believing 
Abraham dying in infancy can be saved, a more remote 
descendant of Abraham, — or of Adam, to whom the 
same promises were given, — should not be saved, by the 
Son of God whom it knew not, and through faith not its 
own ; even though that infant's immediate parents were 
unbelievers. For the Lord who visits the sins of the 
fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth gen- 
eration, showeth mercy unto thousands in (or, for the 
sake of) them that love Him, and keep His command- 
ments. But beyond this point we must proceed with 
increased caution ; and with much diminished hope. 

For the most part, the rewards and punishments of 
the world to come are promised or threatened to those 
who have embraced or have rejected the gospel of Christ, 
— the offers of pardon upon repentance, which, under 
every dispensation, have been made to man for Christ's 
sake. " He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; 
and he that believeth not [the word preached to him] 
shall be condemned." Such is the general doctrine of 
Scripture. But it might be said, The condemnation is, 
that " light is come into the world, and men loved dark- 
ness rather than light, because their deeds were evil:" 
shall then the unavoidable ignorance of those on whom 
the light shineth not, occasion their condemnation ? The 
answer must be, First, they shall neither be saved by 
their ignorance, nor condemned for their ignorance ; but 
condemned for their wilful transgressions of those Divine 
laws of which they were not ignorant, — which were 



APPENDIX. 



419 



written in their hearts. And secondly Scripture une- 
quivocally declares that men may be condemned, through 
ignorance of the Gospel of Christ, and for transgressions 
of which they would have repented, had Gospel light 
reached them. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah 
" would have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes,' , 
had some of the mighty works of Jesus been done in 
their cities ; yet are they set forth as an ensample of the 
severity of Divine justice, and the certainty of punish- 
ment, because, having the light of nature, they walked 
in darkness. 

Let it not be thought that because the " vengeance of 
eternal fire" which those cities are suffering is not the 
punishment of Gehenna, but a previous judgement, or 
because it shall hereafter be " more tolerable" for them 
than for others, that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah 
will find pardon at the Day of Judgement. The fiery 
rain from heaven was not purgatorial, but was a sign 
and proof of Divine wrath ; which if it resteth on a man 
to the instant of his death, resteth on him eternally. 

This doctrine, that men may be condemned, through 
want of a greater illumination than they possess, is 
amply confirmed by the analogy of nature. Ignorance, 
whether unavoidable or voluntary, does not shelter men 
from the suffering which follows, by way of natural con- 
sequence, upon the infringement of any of the laws of 
nature. Poison is not the less deadly, when imbibed 
unwittingly : and even he who strives to avoid danger, 
is often less safe than he who despises it. He who seeks 
the right path however earnestly, must still abide the 
consequences if he should in fact choose the wrong. 
And thus we are bound to fear that the poison of sin 
will destroy many, even among those who dread its 
power, and seek by vain sacrifices to propitiate them that 
are no gods. 

. Again, Scripture declares that of those that are called, 
not many are chosen ; and we cannot believe that of 
those who are not called a larger proportion can be saved : 



420 



APPENDIX. 



since this would make the preaching of the gospel a 
greater curse than blessing. We cannot but believe 
that a fearful judgement awaits the multitudes of the 
heathen ; though they suffer not the twofold punishment 
of the rejectors of gospel light; nor the triple condem- 
nation of those who, having been once enlightened, fall 
away ; nor, lastly, have their portion with the hypocrites. 

Page 245. 

Man in the image of God, in that he is male and female. 

" God created man in His own image, in the image of 
God created He him, male and female created He them," 
and from these words alone we might reasonably suspect 
that man, in that he is male and female, is an image, 
resemblance, or type of his Maker. And a more com- 
prehensive view of revealed truth confirms this suspicion. 
As the Deity is one, and yet there is a plurality of 
persons in the Godhead, so humanity is one, and yet is 
of a twofold nature, male and female. As a certain kind 
of derivation is included in the notion of sonship, and 
power, in some sense, proceedeth from the Father to the 
Son, so Adam was first formed, then Eve, and the woman 
was made out of man. And as Christ and the Father 
are one, so " they twain shall be one flesh." And as 
God created by the Word, without whom nothing was 
made, so man multiplied through Eve, who was called 
the mother of all living. 

And further, Scripture discovers to us, that through 
the mysterious assumption of humanity by the Son of 
God, a third kind of relationship is established, having a 
real affinity to that of the Father and the Son, of the 
male and the female ; and connecting all, if we may 
reverently so speak, in one series. " The head of the 
woman is the man, and the head of the man is Christ, 
and the head of Christ is God/' As the Son partakes 
of the Father's throne, so will the redeemed partake of 
the throne of Christ ; and so also the man is enjoined to 



APPENDIX. 



421 



give honour unto his wife, and admit her to his bosom 
and counsels. As man is the image and glory of God, 
so is the woman the glory of the man, and so also is the 
Son the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express 
image of His person. As he that is joined to any woman 
is one body, so he that is joined to the Lord is one 
spirit. And our Lord's prayer for believers was — " That 
they may be one, even as We are one, I in them, and 
Thou in Me :" and the union of Christ in his Church is 
repeatedly symbolised by the marriage union ; and this 
latter, always sacred and mysterious, has been doubly 
sanctified, it appears, since the Incarnation of the Son 
of God. 

Page 288. 

The " spirits in prison" 1 Peter iii. 18. 

It was sufficient for the main argument to show, that 
our Lord cannot reasonably be supposed to have preached 
to the imprisoned spirits, during the interval between 
his death and resurrection : but it may be worth while 
here to consider some of the numerous conjectural inter- 
pretations of this famous passage of St. Peter ; and to 
propose another, which is perhaps more consistent with 
the language of the apostle; but which has not been 
generally adopted, nor considered as fully as it deserves. 
Not to dwell on one of the conjectures of Archbishop 
Leighton, (that St. Peter refers to the preaching of our 
Lord and his apostles, after his resurrection, to those in 
the bondage of sin; — and which is plainly untenable, 
from its utter want of connection with " the days of 
Noah,") it is commonly supposed that by the " spirits" 
are intended those of the inhabitants of the antediluvian 
world, shortly before its end ; which were " in prison," 
as some think, under the bondage of sin when preached 
to by the Spirit of Christ in the person of Noah, (who 
is termed in Scripture a " preacher of righteousness,") 
or else, as others hold> though free when Christ preached 



422 



APPENDIX. 



to them, were, after their destruction by the flood, im- 
prisoned in Hades, as in a place of punishment. 

To both of these opinions there are two main objec- 
tions. First, there is certainly no other passage in the 
whole Bible, where the word " spirits" is used to signify 
men living on earth, or their souls as separated from 
their bodies. By " the spirit of a man" is generally 
intended either the breath of life, — as when Stephen 
prayed " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," or the mind or 
heart of a man, — as where it is said that human things 
are known, " by the spirit of man which is in him," or 
the heart or temper of a man,— -as where one is said to 
be " grieved in spirit," or to be " hasty of spirit." By 
" the spirit" is intended either the Holy Spirit of God, 
or the operation of that Spirit, or the renewed heart of 
a man. But by " a spirit" is invariably meant an in- 
corporeal creature, an angel, or ghost, — as when Job 
beheld " a spirit pass before his face," or as when Saul 
was visited with " an evil spirit from the Lord," or as 
when the disciples were terrified, thinking " that they 
had seen a spirit." And by " spirits," in the plural, 
and put absolutely, are always signified angels good or 
bad. Thus God is said to " make his angels spirits," 
and they are " all ministering spirits." And the devils 
are repeatedly called " unclean spirits." That these 
" daemons," as they are, literally speaking, termed in the 
New Testament, are the Devil's evil angels seems suf- 
ficiently clear. For the daemons a time of " torment" is 
reserved, which is surely the identical fire prepared for 
Satan and his ministers. And when " the spirits" were 
subject to the seventy disciples, Jesus " beheld Satan 
as lightning fallen from heaven." However the present 
point is not, that by spirits are always intended beings 
of precisely the same nature with the good angels of 
God, (for it may be that Satan's ministers are of a dif- 
ferent species), but that incorporeal creatures, and not 
men, are always signified by the word " spirits." We 



APPENDIX. 



423 



ought therefore, on this account to suppose St. Peter 
to refer, not to human, but to spiritual beings. 

Secondly, we have no reason to think that man's dis- 
obedience in the days of Noah was so peculiarly heinous, 
as to demand any different preaching from that which 
has ever been requisite; since it is not through man's 
comparative innocence that the earth has been exempted 
from a second deluge, and the post-diluvian world has 
become, like the former, altogether " guilty before God :" 
and it is hard to suppose that the Spirit of Christ did in 
fact preach righteousness, by the mouth of Noah, in 
any manner distinct from that in which the same " Spirit 
of Christ" preached by the prophets afterwards. But 
St. Peter seems to allude to some disobedience peculiar 
to that period, and of which not men, but spirits, were 
guilty. 

Now it is surely remarkable that in Genesis we find 
an obscure passage, which may, and frequently has 
been supposed to allude to a disobedience of this de- 
scription. li When men began to multiply upon the 
face of the earth, and sons and daughters were born 
unto them, the sons of God saw the daughters of men 
that they were fair, and they took them wives of all 
that they chose .... And when the sons of God came 
in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children 
to them, the same became mighty men which were of 
old, men of renown. This wickedness appears to have 
commenced not long before the declaration of the 
Divine decree, to destroy man from off the earth. Now 
the expression " sons of God" is in several places of 
Scripture used to signify angels. When the Almighty 
Creator laid the foundations of the earth, the " morning 
stars" (the most glorious of the celestial host) " sang 
together, and all the sons of God" (the whole chorus of 
the subordinate intelligences of heaven) " shouted for 
joy." And in a former part of the same book, (Job. i. 6.) 
when the " sons of God came to present themselves before 



424 



APPENDIX. 



the Lord, Satan also came along with them ;" — being of 
a nature, it appears, akin to theirs. 

Nor need we doubt that angelic creatures could, and 
frequently did, both before and after the flood, assume 
a palpable and human shape. Jacob wrestled with an 
angel; Abraham gave angels, who are there called 
" men," a repast of cakes of meal, a calf, butter, and 
milk, " and stood by them under the tree, and they did 
eat." Lot washed the feet of angels (or men, for they 
are called by both names) and sought to rescue them 
from insult. 

Through the transgression of the angels who were 
tempted by the beauty of the daughters of Eve to unite 
themselves to a species only a little lower than their 
own, the corruption of the human race, the enormity of 
their crimes before God, were fearfully augmented. A 
new sin contaminated mankind ; a monstrous progeny 
had birth, powerful for evil beyond ordinary human 
beings, " mighty men which were of old," and a stain not 
arising from Adam's transgression infected the mixed 
offspring, each bearing about with him not only a pol- 
luted human nature, " naturally engendered," but an 
unclean spirit, supernaturally engendered. 

It may be permitted to us to conjecture that it was 
this offence and stain, beyond all others, which pro- 
voked the Almighty to destroy the old world, — in order 
that he might utterly destroy those semi-angelic families, 
which else, by gradual intermixture would have polluted 
the whole race of man. 

The mythologists, many of whose fables were cer- 
tainly based on authentic traditions, appear to have 
heard, through the descendants of Noah, of this forbidden 
intercourse, these " mighty men." They seem to allude 
to it in the story of the giants or demigods, the sons of 
Ccelus and Terra, of heaven and earth, who rebelled 
against the Ruler of heaven, and sought to invade his 
realms, and were by him cast down, and buried beneath 
the earth. And just such presumptuous rebellion as 



APPENDIX. 425 

this we should naturally expect would manifest itself in 
the sons of the disobedient angels, though we read not 
in Genesis that they " dared defy the Omnipotent to 
arms." Conscious of superhuman strength, aware of 
their extraordinary parentage, corrupt in nature, blinded 
by pride, ambition might incite them to try the regions 
of the air, their fathers' original habitation, and to invade 
the " high places" which were polluted by their presence, 
and even to contend against Him, whose power they 
had cause to fear. 

The original tradition, on which the mythologists 
founded their fable, was probably preserved in an un- 
corrupted form among the Jews ; and of this tradition, 
as a thing generally known and believed in, St. Peter 
and St. Jude also make express mention. In the lan- 
guage of the latter, the " angels that kept not their first 
estate, but left their own habitation," (i. e. for the earth) 
are " cast down to Hades, and reserved in everlasting 
chains under darkness to the judgement of the great 
day:" and the former reminds his disciples that God 
" spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down 
to Hades, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to 
be reserved unto judgement." We would conclude then 
that St. Peter's " spirits in prison" are the disobedient 
sons of God who, in the days of Noah, left their own 
habitation to associate with the daughters of men ; and 
whom the Almighty Power, when He brought in the flood, 
cast down to darkness and chains. The period between 
the commencement of their transgression, and the de- 
struction of the old world was to them a season of trial, 
in which the Saviour going among them by His Spirit, 
sought to recal them to God. Persisting (many of them 
at least, or all), in their rebellion, even as did the sons of 
men, they were at length given over to perdition, suf- 
fered to transgress no longer, but cast down, enchained, 
and kept for judgement. 

It is evident that when Peter and Jude refer to the 
rebellion and punishment of the angels they are arguing 



426 



APPENDIX. 



from the known to the unknown. They sought to con- 
vince men of the certainty of future judgments, by re- 
minding them of the judgments which they knew God 
had inflicted in old times. For this purpose they men- 
tioned the notorious destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, 
the deluge, the reality of which event was commonly 
believed in (though there were scoffers willingly ignorant 
of it), and the punishment of the angels that sinned. St. 
Peter seems to speak of this as if it had been equally 
notorious with the deluge, and as if it had either accom- 
panied, or preceded, that event. It must be presumed 
that St. Peter, when writing of the " spirits in prison," 
as well as when referring to the " angels that sinned,'' 
intended and expected to be understood. If we suppose 
him to refer to a tradition concerning disobedient angels, 
all is clear. His words must otherwise have been as 
obscure, it seems, in his days, as modern commentators 
have generally found them. 

The interpretation above suggested must however 
appear objectionable to those who have hitherto sup- 
posed Satan and his angels to be identical with " the 
angels that sinned." If such were the fact, it is plain 
that, since the disobedience of Satan was long before the 
days of Noah, the " spirits in prison," and the " sons of 
God" mentioned in Genesis cannot be identified with 
those rebellious angels. But whoever will calmly con- 
sider the account given in the Apocalypse of the binding 
of Satan during the millennial period must perceive that 
he and his attendant legions cannot be identified with 
the fallen angels of Peter and Jude. For they are 
already bound, in chains, in prison, in Hades, in the 
bottomless pit, no longer permitted to transgress, but 
confined, and reserved for judgement. But Satan is 
now free. For a thousand years, which have not com- 
menced as yet, he will be in prison, in chains, in Hades, 
in the bottomless pit, even as they are now; unable 
longer to " deceive the nations," to " go to and fro in 



I 



APPENDIX. 



427 



the earth/' " as a roaring lion seeking whom he may 
devour." At the close of the millennium he will be 
released, and again be permitted to deceive the nations. 
Nor need it appear strange, that while multitudes of 
evil angels, though condemned beyond reprieve, are still 
permitted to roam about unchained, to seduce and ruin 
mankind, some should be already imprisoned. For their 
offence was intolerable, and lest its consequences should 
be perpetuated, and the crime itself repeated, God at 
once swept away the human transgressors and their 
giant offspring, and cast the spirits into a prison, whence 
they could seduce no more. 

After the foregoing observations were written, the au- 
thor found in one of the admirable " Essays and Sermons 
by the Rev. II. Woodward," a similar interpretation of 
the expression " spirits in prison :" which, as he there 
learned, is understood by the author of " Eruvin" also 
to refer to the sons of God who transgressed with the 
daughters of men. But it is stated in the Essays, that 
Christ's preaching to the imprisoned spirits " must have 
been when his body lay in the grave, and his soul, in a 
state of separation, went into the invisible world." The 
majority of modern commentators certainly perceive no 
such necessity. And to what purpose could Christ 
preach to spirits already condemned : " cast down and 
reserved for judgement f" And, as has been argued above, 
the life-giving Spirit of God abhors death, and can in 
nowise ally itself with the power of the grave, nor dwell 
in the shades of darkness. It displayed its energy, on 
the contrary, in quickening our Lord, in raising him from 
the dead. 

The opinion that our Lord's preaching to the im- 
prisoned spirits took place in the interval between his 
death and resurrection is perhaps in a great measure to 
be ascribed to a neglect to observe the connection be- 
tween Christ's death, quickening, and preaching, and 
the things spoken of by St. Peter in the subsequent 



428 



APPENDIX. 



parts of the same sentence. Why, it may be asked, 
should St. Peter pass off from the consideration of the 
death and resurrection of Christ to that of his preaching 
to the spirits, unless that preaching took place, not 
before, but between his death and resurrection? There 
are four things, it may be replied, which St. Peter men- 
tions in one connection, — The death and rising again of 
our Lord, — the preaching to the spirits, — the deluge, and 
saving of Noah by water, — and the baptism of Chris- 
tians. The connection of the first and fourth of these is 
obvious, and that of the third and fourth not obscure. 
From the thought of our Lord's rising from the grave 
St. Peter passed to the figurative baptism of the flood, 
mentioning, by the way, our Lord's preaching to the 
spirits, in connection with what followed as well as with 
what preceded it ; that preaching being by the agency of 
the Spirit that quickened him, and shortly before the time 
when the deluge slew, washed away, and buried sin, and 
raised and saved the righteous Noah and his family. 

A further reason is given, in the Essay above referred 
to, for supposing that our Lord preached to the spirits 
after his crucifixion. A curious parallel is drawn between 
the passage of St. Peter, and 1 Tim. hi. 16; in which, it 
is said, " God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the 
spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, be- 
lieved on in the world, received up into glory ;" which 
are supposed severally to refer to our Lord's incarnation 
and ministry, death on the cross, preaching to the spirits, 
demonstrating, by resurrection, his divine power, pro- 
claiming the universality of his gospel, and ascending 
into heaven. But this parallel fails if we understand in 
a literal sense (and why should we not?) the words 
"preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world." 
For though our Lord gave proof of his divine power, by 
his resurrection from the dead, it was given, prior to his 
resurrection, not to " the world," but merely unto " wit- 
nesses chosen before of God f and though he proclaimed 
the catholicity of his kingdom, he forbade his disciples to 



APPENDIX. 



429 



quit Jerusalem, and in fact they did not " preach to the 
Gentiles," until after his ascension. 

Besides, the expression " seen of angels" is abundantly 
significant, without being thus explained. It is argued 
indeed in the Essay, that since the obedient angels had 
always beheld our Lord's face in glory, since their crea- 
tion, therefore the rebellious spirits who had been ban- 
ished into darkness, are probably intended by St. Paul. 
It is true that the angels of light had always beheld our 
Lord's face in glory, but they had not beheld before the 
grand mystery of godliness ; nay, into its fathomless 
depths they still desire to look. They had doubtless 
heard of the wondrous plan of redemption long before. 
At least from the time of Adam's fall those ministering 
spirits must have comprehended somewhat of the in- 
tended salvation, " saw the promises afar off," and 
eagerly desired their fulfilment. When the Son of God 
went forth, in all the plenitude of His Father's power, to 
reduce the primaeval chaos into order 

et Him all his train 
Followed in bright procession, to behold 
Creation and the wonders of his might." 

And the magnificent display of His power and wisdom 
filled them with acclamations and songs. Now even to 
us, who can behold the glories of the creating and sus- 
taining Word only by the eye of faith, the humiliation 
of the Son of God presents a spectacle of overwhelming 
wonder. What then must it have appeared to (hem, who 
had beheld him in his heavenly glories, — w ho had " seen 
him as he is?"* What heart can conceive the feelings 
with which they gazed down on Jesus, when he occupied 
a rank lower than their own, and trod the earth with 
toilsome steps, among mortals who met their Creator face 
to face, and knew Him not ! And who shall describe the 



* As he is, who said of himself I am. 



430 



APPENDIX. 



emotions that agitated as one soul the myriads of the 
heavenly host who witnessed the temptation in the wil- 
derness, the agony in the garden, the pangs of cruci- 
fixion, the slumbers in the sealed tomb ? Or who can 
adequately comprehend their feelings of triumph and 
veneration at that " bringing of the first-begotten [from 
the dead] into the world" at which the decree passed, 
" Let all the angels of God worship Him?" 

Surely these spectacles may have been of no small 
importance : redoubling the activity of the ministering 
spirits in the service of those for whom their Lord had 
died. Nor is this all. We know that Christ by his 
death reconciled unto himself things in heaven as well as 
things on earth : and like the Israelites who gazed on the 
brazen serpent, so the angels may have derived new life, 
from being eye-witnesses cf the cross of Christ. 

Page 338. 

The presumption of pronouncing upon man's destiny, on 
the supposition that he had continued sinless. 

If it be an idle and presumptuous thing, to enquire what 
would have been the destiny of sinful and fallen man, 
but for the mediation of Christ, it is no less vain and 
presumptuous to enquire what would have been his lot, 
had he never fallen. As the mediation was decreed 
before the foundation of the world, so preparations were 
made in heaven, many mansions were made ready, for 
those whom Christ should rescue from death, even while 
man continued in his uprightness, and found perfect hap- 
piness in Paradise. And it seems not improbable that 
preparations were made upon the earth also ; that the 
general constitution of our globe was from the first such 
as to render it a fitting place of probationary discipline 
for fallen man ; and that beyond the borders of Eden 
decay and reproduction, sickness and mortality, may 
have prevailed from the first. It would seem unreason- 
able to suppose that while the heavenly mansions were 



APPENDIX. 



431 



actually prepared, even " from the foundation of the 
world," the Divine Artificer should have formed the earth 
without respect, as it were, to the arrangements made 
elsewhere, to be the abode of a sinless race. 

But this and similar considerations, which ought to 
have the effect of impressing us with a deep sense of the 
absolute and unchangeable character of the Divine 
decrees, and so checking our proneness to speculate on 
unreal, and therefore perhaps absurd, suppositions, have 
unfortunately tended on the contrary to encourage many 
to pronounce confidently what would have been the 
destiny of man, had he remained upright. Thus it has 
been asserted by Dr. Buckland and others, that " under 
no imaginable condition are we taught to contemplate 
an earthly Paradise as the enduring abode of the first 
created man, or of the countless myriads of his descen- 
dants." In fact w T e are never taught in Scripture to 
contemplate the earth, or mankind, under any conditions 
but those which revelation has made known. As a mere 
hypothesis we may put any case we will ; but it would 
be wise to abstain altogether from the attempt to draw 
any conclusions as to the course which, as we think ? 
God would have adopted in an event which is purely 
hypothetical. The high authority of Dr. Bull has been 
given to the same side. " Let it once be granted that 
man, if he had continued obedient, should have enjoyed 
an everlasting life, any man of reason that shall closely 
consider the matter will presently collect that this life 
could not in any congruity be perpetuated in the earthly 
Paradise ; and therefore the man was, in the design of 
God, after a certain period of time to have been trans- 
lated to a higher state, i. e. to celestial bliss." We can- 
not know that Paradise would have been unfit for man's 
permanent abode : and we have no right whatever, — it 
is necessary to repeat this — to assert that this or any 
other mode of dealing with the human race, under cir- 
cumstances which were never to occur, did enter into 
" the design of God." It is sheer folly and presumption 



432 



APPENDIX. 



at best, to attribute to the All-wise and Almighty God 
any design, except such as we believe He will in fact 
execute, or hath executed already. 

And even as a mere hypothesis, this notion that the 
Deity intended to translate each individual of the my- 
riads of the human race from earth to heaven, after a 
certain period of time, is encumbered with difficulties as 
great as any which it attempts to remove. Unless the 
garden planted eastward in Eden had no particular lo- 
cality, and Paradise consisted merely in spiritual privi- 
leges which might be enjoyed equally on every part of 
the earth's surface, the greater portion of the countless 
myriads of Adam's sinless posterity must have been 
excluded from the Eden of their forefathers from want 
of room : or if it accommodated all, for what purpose 
was the rest of the earth made ? Even supposing that, 
previous to the curse, the earth at large would have 
formed a far more pleasant and fitting abode for man, 
we cannot suppose that the Divine favour, accompanying 
the children of men, as it accompanied the Israelites, 
from country to country, would have made all places 
alike Edens of delight. There was a spot of peculiar 
sanctity and blessedness from which Adam was expelled : 
on the other supposition his punishment would have 
consisted simply in the withdrawal of the overshadowing 
cloud of Divine glory. But it would be useless to pur- 
sue such speculations further. 

Page 344. 
See the article appended to page 111. 

Page 377. 

" The Holy City." 

It has been maintained above, in pages 321 to 327, that 
we ought to expect that the restoration of Israel to God's 
favour will be post-millennial ; and that the holy city 



APPENDIX. 



433 



promised to them will not be transitory, but hath foun- 
dations which cannot be moved. But we should do well 
to bear in mind, that in very many passages of the Old 
Testament language is used in respect of the coming of 
Christ, which must have appeared at the time to refer to 
one Advent, though in fact two were intended. And 
thus, probably, as well as through their proneness to un- 
spiritual interpretations, and their natural impatience 
under subjection to Rome, many of the Jews were led to 
expect the Messiah to appear as a king and a conqueror, 
who should rule the nations with a rod of iron, and be 
the glory of his people Israel. Their error should remind 
us, that where one restoration of the Jews seems to be 
promised, two may be intended : that Hebrews acknow- 
ledging Christ as their High-Priest may yet inhabit 
Judea, and build the walls of Jerusalem, and make it a 
holy city ; although still looking, even as we look, for no 
transitory promises, still confessing themselves strangers 
and pilgrims on the earth, still expecting their grand and 
final restoration, still having their conversation (tsoKitsv- 
ovreg) in heaven, and waiting for that Jerusalem which is 
above, wherein Christians of all countries shall sit down 
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of 
God. 

Page 383. 
The tzoo thrones. Rev. iii. 21. 

There is perhaps no one passage of Scripture which is 
capable of furnishing a more forcible argument in dis- 
proof of the doctrine called Unitarianism than that which 
has been just quoted in the text: and the argument 
appears to be fairly admissible at least in this Appendix, 
inasmuch as it nearly relates to the future state of all 
who overcome. 

There are very numerous passages of Scripture, it may 
be admitted, which appear to show that the blessed Son 
of God, although possessed of great power and glory, 



434 



APPENDIX. 



has nevertheless no power nor glory which shall not, 
either in this world or the next, be conferred on all his 
true disciples. " The glory which Thou hast given me," 
saith our Lord, " I have given them." Again, " I have 
called you friends ; for all things which I have heard of 
my Father I have made known unto you." And St. 
John writes, " We be called the sons of God : when 
Christ shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall 
see him as He is." And all believers are termed " heirs 
of God ; joint-heirs with Chi^ist." They who are con- 
cerned to vindicate before men the majesty of the Son 
of God need not be perplexed by these passages, nor by 
any others which an opponent of the truth may bring 
forward with the same view, — but may safely allow 
(though perhaps in some cases allowing more than they 
need), that they do assert an equality, in the heavenly 
state, between Christ and the several members of his 
church. But let us now consider our text. " Unto him 
that overcometh will I give to sit with me in my throne, 
even as I also overcame, and am set down with the 
Father in His throne." These words are enough to show 
(in perfect agreement with, but without aid from, the 
Scriptural doctrine that Christ hath a twofold nature), 
that Christ hath two thrones, one which he terms his, 
the other the Father's. To sit upon the same throne 
plainly implies to possess the same rank, the same glory, 
power, might, majesty, and dominion ; to have two 
thrones, is to have a twofold rank, a twofold dominion. 
Hence we conclude, that all the followers and friends of 
Christ will be rendered equal with him, being raised to 
the same utterable height of glory which peculiarly ap- 
pertains to the Son of Man, sitting with him on his 
throne ; while Christ the Son of God, infinitely above 
them still, "high throned above all height," shall, through 
all eternity occupy the seat, and wield the power of God 
the Father Almighty. How is it possible to evade the 
conclusion, that as man will be equal with Christ, so 
Christ is equal with God ? 



APPENDIX. 



435 



To sit upon the same throne either implies equality, 
or it does not: and the impugners of the doctrine of 
Christ's divinity may choose either alternative, or, if they 
please, try both. If it imply equality, then Christ is 
equal with God. Equal, and co-equal, and one. He 
dethrones not His Father, but sits with Him ; He is 
seated, not on a rival throne, but on the same ; He ex- 
ercises one and the same supremacy. It may be ad- 
mitted too, as it is by the soundest divines of the Church 
of England, that the dignity is in a manner derivative, 
but it is not therefore inferior. The redeemed are truly 
joint-heirs and equal with Christ, even though it is of his 
gift that they sit with him on his throne. Perhaps then 
it will be held to imply inequality. The supposition ap- 
pears absurd in itself ; and what are its consequences ? 
That the redeemed who sit on the throne of Christ will 
not be equal with him ; on which supposition many of 
those passages on which the Unitarian mainly relies will, 
by perfect parity of reasoning, be nullified. For no rea- 
son can be assigned for the supposed inequality, but that 
the dignity is derivative, and therefore inferior. If so, 
then, where it is said " The glory which thou hast given 
me, I have given them" this also implies inequality. We 
may be certain that our text, containing the promise 
made, in the case of the last of the " seven churches,'' 
to him that overcometh, promises nothing less than the 
highest honour, glory, and bliss, which has ever been 
offered to mankind in Scripture. We cannot suppose 
that Christ, in promising to seat man on his throne, pro- 
mised him a dignity inferior to his own, if elsewhere he 
had promised, or intended to confer on him, or knew 
that he would obtain, an equal dignity. The Uni- 
tarian then cannot degrade Christ below the Father, 
without degrading himself below Christ. But we may 
press this point much further. On the principles of the 
Unitarians, the Son, sitting on the Father's throne is 
not only not equal with Him, but incalculably, nay infi- 
nitely inferior. What then will become of that co-equal 



436 



APPENDIX. 



dignity for which they contend, implied in joint heirship, 
or in the other promises ? 

There will be, it may be observed, a certain inequality 
between different believers in the world to come. For 
specific acts of obedience will have specific rewards; of 
some it is said, "great is their reward in heaven," and 
to some it will be given " to sit on Christ's right hand 
and on his left." But notwithstanding these minor dif- 
ferences, they will sit on the same throne: their privileges 
will be all the same in essence, but unequal in degree. 
They shall be honoured, by being caused to shine " as the 
stars for ever and ever;" but " one star differeth from 
another star in glory." But this minor inequality cannot 
subsist between the Two who are seated upon the upper 
throne. Humanity is finite, and man can excel man ; 
but to Deity absolute perfection, absolute infinity are 
essential: and the Son must either equal the Father, by 
being also infinite in every attribute ; or, not being in- 
finite, must be infinitely inferior. None but God can sit 
upon God's throne. 

But perhaps it will be contended, that the text admits 
of a different interpretation, by which the argument may 
be evaded. It is just possible that the words, taken by 
themselves, may signify, that there is but one throne ; 
which Christ calls his, because he is seated upon it by 
the Father. And this interpretation may at first sight 
appear to be countenanced by the words — " Unto him 
that overcometh .... even as I also overcame :" which 
may seem to promise to those who are similarly victorious 
a similar reward. But if we therefore attribute to Christ 
that kind of precedency only which belongs to the cap- 
tain of our salvation, to the chief and leader of the 
glorious army of martyrs and saints, and suppose him to 
be similarly rewarded with the rest by a God infinitely 
above him, we shall find it hard indeed to explain the 
words " J will give to him to sit with me on my throne. 
The words " Unto him that overcometh ... as I over- 
came" should lead us to a widely different interpretation. 



APPENDIX. 



437 



Christ, when He had obtained that victory over sin and 
death which was possible to God alone, for ever sat 
down enthroned on the right hand of God ; for man re- 
mains only a minor victory, and even that he cannot ob- 
tain by the strength of his own arm ; and his reward, in 
being seated on the throne of the Son of man, will be 
far beyond his deserts. We ought not moreover to take 
the text by itself, for from other passages it is abundantly 
plain that there are two thrones. The heavenly city be- 
held by St John had no temple, " for the Lord God Al- 
mighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." And it 
needed not sun nor moon ; " for the glory of God did 
lighten it, and the Lamb was the light thereof. And the 
nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of 
it." And, " the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be 
in it; and His servants shall serve Him." What can be 
more plain and certain than that the redeemed shall not 
sit upon this throne. As subjects they serve the Lord 
God and the Lamb that sitteth thereon. 

But there is another hypothesis which must be briefly 
noticed, because, extravagant as it is, it has been ad- 
vanced in some popular writings, and even by ministers 
of the Anglican Church. Influenced by the passage in 
St. Paul, (1 Cor. xv. 24 to 28) which declares that at the 
end of the world Christ shall deliver up the kingdom to 
God, even the Father, and put down all rule, and all 
authority and power, and be subject to Him that put all 
things under him, they suppose that Christ now occupies 
the throne of God, but shall hereafter exchange it for the 
inferior throne of the Son of Man. If this be so, then 
Christ is now divine, and hereafter will not be so ! 

The truth seems to be, that at the time of the end 
God, — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, — will 
be "all in all," through the resignation by Jesus, the 
Son of Man, of the supreme authority and dominion now 
delegated to him. The Son of God will surely remain, 
as before, seated on his Father's throne, wielding the 



438 



APPENDIX. 



same sceptre ; but the Son of Man, having " laid down all 
rule," will then sit on that second and inferior throne, to 
which he will welcome the fellow-servants of his Father. 

We have a very remarkable illustration of this myste- 
rious transaction, if not an actual type of it, furnished 
by profane history. The destruction of Jerusalem by 
Titus is generally admitted to be typical of the second 
advent of Christ. It marked the close of a dispensation ; 
and it inflicted a fearful judgement upon the enemies of 
God. Titus, who led the armies of Rome, was the son of 
the then reigning emperor Vespasian ; and " the father 
had committed all judgement unto the son," by giving 
him absolute command of all the forces of the empire, 
in order to the reduction of the rebellious province of 
Judsea. Not long after this Vespasian associated his 
son with himself on the imperial throne : the general 
laid down his rule, that the emperor, or emperors, might 
be all in all. 



THE END. 



C. WHITTINGHAM, CIIISWICK. 



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perusal."— Christian Bemembrancer. 



TYTLER, Miss A. F. — Leila at Home; a Continu- 

ation of "Leila in England." By Ann Fraser Tytler. Third Edition. 
Fcap. 8vo. cloth, 4s. 

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D 



34 



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TYTLEE, Miss A. P. 

Leila; or, the Island. Seventh Edition. 

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displayed, but cannot be better bestowed."— Quarterly Review. 



TYTLER, Miss M. F. — The Wooden Walls of Old 

England: or, Lives of Celebrated Admirals. By Margaret Fraser 
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cloth, 7s. 



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35 



VICTORIA, Bishop of. — Lewchew and the Lew- 

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WEBB, Mrs. J. B.— The Beloved Disciple. Reflec- 

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Words of Wisdom for my Child ; being a Text for 

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WOODWARD, Rev. H. — Thoughts on the Character 

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YORKE, Rev. C. J. — Original Researches in the 

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THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF 

TUPPER'S PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

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C. W. Cope, R.A. 
Fred. R. Pickerfgill, A. R.A. 
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Edward H. Corbould. 
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The Defigns by 

Edward Duncan. 
Birket Fofter. 
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James Godwin. 
William Harvey 



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Jofeph Severn. 
Walter Severn. 
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TUPPER'S PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 




Vice is grown aweary of her gawds, and donneth russet garments, 

Loving for change to walk as a nun, beneath a modest veil : 

For Pride hath noted how all admire the fairness of Humility, 

And to clutch the praise he coveteth, is content to be drest in hair-cloth ; 



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